Michael Porter makes two interesting observations about innovation in the US in his BusinessWeek interview entitled Why America Needs an Economic Strategy:

… U.S. entrepreneurship has been fed by a science, technology, and innovation machine that remains by far the best in the world. While other countries increase their spending on research and development, the U.S. remains uniquely good at coaxing innovation out of its research and translating those innovations into commercial products. In 2007, American inventors registered about 80,000 patents in the U.S. patent system, where virtually all important technologies developed in any nation are patented. That’s more than the rest of the world combined

In contrast to the effectiveness of utilizing research and technology for entrepreneurial purposes, Porter notes a worrisome trend:

An inadequate rate of reinvestment in science and technology is hampering America’s feeder system for entrepreneurship. Research and development as a share of GDP has actually declined, while it has risen in many other countries. Federal policymakers recognize this problem but have failed to act.

Viewed in light of Part I of this mini-series on innovation, a natural question posts itself:

Do the new forms of experimentation, which enable the US entrepreneurial system to be so very effective in coaxing innovation out of research that has already been done, mask a fundamental decline for which there will be hell to pay?!

Clicking through to a BusinessWeek article today, I noticed what I thought was an ad for Google Voice.

Call Me Google

After closer inspection, I realized BusinessWeek is testing a “voice comments” feature for their Byte of the Apple column.

When I first saw the ad, I had no idea what it offered. Even after several minutes of playing around with it and clicking on the learn more link did I realize the BusinessWeek page had refreshed with the following explanation page:

In the three years or so that we’ve been producing this blog, we’ve learned one thing: Opinions about Apple always run strong. Our readers love to leave lots of comments agreeing or disagreeing with our posts here. We thought we’d try a little experiment using Google Voice to give you the ability to tell us exactly what you think in your own voice.

Here’s how it works: Click the Google Voice widget over to the right, and enter your phone number. Your phone will ring, and when you answer you’ll be prompted to leave a message just like on a regular voice mail system. We promise not to share your phone number with anyone else for any reason. But if you leave us a voice message you do so with the understanding that we may publish the audio of your message here, especially those that are insightful, clever or funny. So give us your best, but be nice. All calls go straight to voice mail, so don’t expect anyone to answer in person. We hope you enjoy this feature and that it adds to the quality of our always-interesting and ongoing conversation about Apple.

Understanding what the ad offered, I then gave it a try.

I entered my Google Voice telephone number in the fields provided and clicked Connect.

Connect Call

Within a second or two of clicking connect, I reached a voice mail box where I heard Arik Hesseldahl of BusinessWeek explain why they are testing the Google Voice product.

I was then urged to leave my comments about their Byte of the Apple column.

This is the first time I have noticed a website of any kind incorporate voice commenting into their user engagement mix.

Although I don’t have any comments about their Apple column per se, I do have one question about the Call Me Google Voice messaging product: When can I get a Call Me Google plugin for my WordPress blog?

Isn’t this type of audience interactivity something every publisher would want for their website?

Mediaweek is reporting, as it sets its sights on becoming a much bigger, influential news organization, Bloomberg LP has reached out to creative agencies to develop its biggest-scale marketing campaign to date for its portfolio of brands.

Bloomberg is looking to change with BusinessWeek. By adding the newsweekly to its portfolio, the company hopes to give its journalists better access to corporate and political newsmakers, thus strengthening its audience reach and credibility across its media platforms.

last tuesday i attended the masschallenge #massaccess speed-networking event, and the evening really epitomized why i love boston so much. first, it was a great event so kudos to john, akhil and david for the great work. the format was really innovative, six 10min slots to meet six new people in an hour. with some 200 people or organize, the event was pretty well organized. there was sushi and open bar afterward which was a really nice treat. what was also really nice was being invited out to dinner by bill warner. a week after winning the masstlc innovation catalyst award, it was no great surprise to me for bill to round up a few youngens and invite us out to dinner, no great surprise but a really nice gesture nevertheless. he spoke of the changing startup scene in boston, and credited the involvement of a lot of young people being proactive within the startup scene. being a young person, in the boston scene, i thought i’d shed a spotlight on a few youngens doing some interesting things.

the best thing about all these guys is they’d genuinely love to help in any way they can …

evan morikawa – twitter and linkedin

someone i’ve openly said that i’d love to co-found a company with one day, evan’s a brilliantly smart engineer, specializing in software. what makes evan’s relatively unique is his understanding and love of design, both raw graphic as well as user design. his team is pushing hard on a saas education startup, alight learning. the alpha is currently being tested by teachers, with hundreds more waiting for the beta.

jeremy levine – twitter and linkedin

i’ve been really impressed with jer’s progress in the last few months on his sports stock market startup, star street. they’ve planning on launching in a few months, and with every guy jer talks to get excited about the opportunity to trade their favorite sports players, i’m excited for him. he’s equally excited about the developing boston startup scene, having moved back to cambridge from syracuse where he went to school.

jason evanish – twitter, blog and linkedin

one of the most active young networkers in boston, the face and brains behind greenhorn connect, an aggregation of boston startup events, and other resources, i think jason’s actually trying to do the impossible and actually make it to all the events on offer, so don’t be surprised if he tweets about multiple events in the same evening. so if you want any advice on how to get the most out of boston, especially as a young startup enthusiast, evanish is totally the guy to connect with.

michael raybman – twitter and linkedin

a startup i personally can’t wait till launch, way savvy is a flexible travel search site that shows me what the best options are if i just wanted to go skiing sometime this winter with a rough budget of $500, i.e. it’s for those without exact dates months in advance, and exact destinations. i mean i just want to go boarding somewhere cheap, don’t really care when or wear. michael is the founder and they’re planning launch late this year/early next year.

danny wong – twitter and linkedin

someone who regularly makes me feel guilty that i’m not working hard enough, not because i’m genuinely not, but rather because this guy’s an absolute beast. someone you’ll be relieved to have on your team, we’re definitely lucky to have danny as blank label’s lead traffic controller. he oversees all our seo/sem, social media and networking, and affiliate marketing. a great networker in his own right, especially in the domain of of online marketing.

chris jacobs – businessweek profile

winner of this year’s businessweek 25 under 25, i can say from living with this guy, he has one of the biggest and craziest personalities of anyone i know, which is really saying something given most of the people i hang around are startup people, and by nature supposed to be a little crazy. he is a partner at emergent energy group, a renewable energy consulting startup with over 30 clients. they’re more excited projects they’re entering into are in urban development, definitely one to look out for.

cort johnson – twitter and linkedin; and jake cacciapaglia – twitter and linkedin

these two are quite attached at the hip, but of the dozens of times i’ve seen them, i think i can honestly say that i’ve never seem them more than 10 feet apart, and have definitely never seen them independent of each other. the guys behind what is becoming a cornerstone of the young boston startup scene, #pokinholes, dart boston has also expanded to #rule53 and #captialize. these guys are both true connectors, they passionate promote youth entrepreneurship in the form of giving the limelight to young boston entrepreneurs actually starting companies

the great thing about these guys is that they’re all 25 or under. i can’t wait to see what they do in the next 25 years. whatever it is, i just hope that it’s in boston.

of course there’s no forgetting matt lauzon and seth priebatsch, the founders of paragon lake and scvngr, respectively. but they’re already well on the way to making it so need to give them more praise then they’ve already received … kudos to highland, the venture backer of both these young rockstars

“Seven hundred billion dollars. That’s a ballpark estimate of how much money is wasted in the U.S. medical system every single year, according to a new Thomson Reuters (TRI) report.”

With all eyes on Washington and debates over improving our health care system, a new BusinessWeek story examines  10 ways — aside from health care reform — to lower health-care costs and improve patient care, like improving the health of our workforce, cracking down on fraud in the health care system, and more. And NCL’s new medication adherence campaign, which is in the planning stages, made the story!  Read it here.

I had the opportunity to provide a ten-minute presentation on strategic thinking at FutureForum 2010, which was moderated by Michael Arndt, editor of BusinessWeek’s innovation and design coverage. I was joined by several other authors on the panel, including Scott Davis, author of The Shift and Bridget Brennan, author of Why She Buys.

Scott and Bridget both brought some excellent marketing perspectives to current and future business issues. The common thread between all three presentations was “insight.” Each of us talked about how important insights are to business success. 

An insight is when we’re able to wade through all of the information and raw data, pick out a few pieces, and combine them in a unique way to come up with a new idea or new approach to the business. In my research, I’ve found four solid ways to generate insights: Context; Questions; Customers; and Models.

How are you generating insights for your business?

In this week’s issue of BusinessWeek, we published the inaugural list of “The World’s Most Intriguing New Companies.” I am thrilled that we launched the package right as Global Entrepreneurship Week kicks off, taking place Nov. 16-22, in 85 nations.

In my lead story for the package, “Fertile Ground for Startups,” I made two big points:
1. Startups are playing an increasingly important role in American business
2. Startups may play a central role in any recovery.

There was one startling new study, based on 2007 Census data, I was unable to work into the story that I want to highlight now, which provides some empirical evidence supporting the second point.

According to a new study by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, which was co-written by the respected economist Robert Litan, companies less than five years old generated nearly two-third of the net new jobs created in the U.S. in 2007. Without these startups, “net job creation for the American economy would be negative in all but a handful of years.”

The upshot: It is clear more than ever that new companies and the entrepreneurs that lead them are the engines of job creation and economic recovery.

It is well known within economic circles that new companies produce the majority of new jobs in the U.S. economy. What this reports reveals for the first time is extent of that trend, and the fact that startups play a particularly important role in growing jobs out of a recession. New companies have produced all of the net new jobs in the U.S. from 2001-2007, and also from 1980-1983, the last big American downturn, according to the study.

Read the rest of the BusinesssWeek blog post here and also see an embedded link of the report.

The downturn in commercial real estate still seems to be getting worse.

By 2012, more than $1.4 trillion worth of commercial real estate loans will come due, according to investment firm ING Clarion Partners. Analysts at Deutsche Banks estimate that commercial borrowers will be unable to roll over three-quarters of the loans they took out in 2007, the worst year for toxic loans.

But the more serious problem is the quality of the underlying loans, analysts say, pointing to examples of pricey deals that went south within months of the original sale. Research firm Reis Inc. estimated that income projections made for properties that sold between 2005 and 2008 exceeded their historical performances by an average of 15 percent.

“It was all based on assumption of cash flow,” says Howard S. Landsberg of New York-based consultant Weiser Realty Advisors. “If you couldn’t afford to pay the bank back now, in three years you could count on another $20 a square foot in rent. When the numbers didn’t add up, some lenders got imaginative.”

Source: BusinessWeek, Mara Der Hovanesian and Dean Foust, with John Cady (11/13/2009)

Michael S. Hopkins, Editor in Chief, MIT Sloan Management Review (click to enlarge)

One of the oldest ways to get someone’s attention about environmental concerns is to holler at them and wave your arms in the air. While that still has its place, the best way to get a bear’s attention is with honey, not vinegar. Over recent years thousands of forward-thinkers worldwide, including Michael S. Hopkins, Karen Solomon and Mike Flynn noticed this and acted upon it. In a largely capitalistic world, the only way anyone’s gonna make significant progress in sustainability is to monetize it.

Greenpeace, that doesn’t mean we don’t love you… sometimes the Conscience Police “gotta slap someone upside the head” with negative media to get a company’s attention. Of course, many people and companies can be found who try their best to greenwash their business and customers but over the long term, the only businesses that will succeed will be those with genuine interest in heartfelt sustainability. And those companies were the rule rather than the exception at the third annual Opportunity Green business conference in Los Angeles just a few days ago.

(l-r) Zem Joaquim of Ecofabulous, Colin Bryant of Paladin Capital, Adam Lowry of Method, Julie Gilhart of Barneys and Rich Steinberg of Mini (click to enlarge)

Opportunity Green’s tagline is “being green + being profitable” and 56 top-flight speakers held forth on a wide variety of topics from overviews of mass consumerism, to marketing, to the history of green technology, product design, to the business of sustainability, to next generation transportation. By quick visual estimate, around 35 companies set booths to discuss their green services and products. And since picking our path into the future is important, Opportunity Green also created a nifty competition, the “OG25” to select, “twenty-five sustainable start-ups chosen for their stand-out approaches to creating real change through business.”

The net effect that Opportunity Green has on your life is simple – in months and years to come, many of the discussions which took root here will bear fruit as products and services which you’ll use.

Chris Jordan's new rendering of Hokusai's famous 'Great Wave off Kanagawa' - made instead from plastic debris (click to enlarge)

Setting everyone’s intention at the first session was attorney-turned-photographer Chris Jordan, who showed unedited photos from his just-finished expedition to Midway Atoll. Getting one’s brain wrapped around humanity’s influence on Earth takes focus and perspective, but since a picture’s worth a thousand words Chris’s work drives home the point that our species is out of reaction time. Sobered, arrested and sad would be how I’d describe many of us felt as we watched Chris flick through his photographic montages to show us what we’ve done.

Chris’s unedited Midway photos and especially striking photographic montages like the ironic homage to Hokusai shown here, depict humanity’s influence via our debris from places like the Eastern Garbage Patch. These beautifully horrible images must be pondered to be believed. Also known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, this soup of humanity’s toxic debris about twice the size of Texas is contained in one of five ‘pools’ in the Earth’s oceans called gyres.

If you’re reading this you owe it to yourself and your children to click through to Chris’s site. His compilation from Midway is below – Downer Alert! – get yourself some coffee or tea before you watch this, take a little time and remember that we can correct our mistakes.

Chris Jordan’s “Midway: Message from the Gyre”

But Opportunity Green is here to help us focus on solutions to problems like these that Chris is able to show us, bringing some of the world’s best organizations together to compare notes. Keith Kegley of the X-Prize Foundation even hinted during his presentation that they’re considering working on solutions to the debris of the gyres. Hundreds of the best companies in their field attend or present at Opportunity Green including legends like Yvon Chouinard’s Patagonia. Co-founders Karen Solomon and Mike Flynn have done a fabulous job with their brainchild, and it looks like a particularly bright childhood will lead Opportunity Green into brilliant maturity.

In addition to Opportunity Green’s strong profile in the business world – as exemplified by BusinessWeek’s Helen Walters video interview of Len Sauers, Procter & Gamble’s Vice President for Global Sustainability – the conference has already drawn attention from wider media. The Los Angeles Times, Glamour magazine, the New York Times and CNN are all carrying stories about Opportunity Green.

CNN Local Edition’s interview of Opportunity Green’s co-founder Mike Flynn & Emilie Cowan.

A nonprofit or two were even represented, including Bud Moore’s Algalita Marine Research Foundation, one of the first groups to give the Earth a heads-up about the Eastern Garbage patch and the other four marine gyres which attract toxic plastic detritus. Algalita’s Anna Cummins was on-hand to outline its programs and told Blue Planet Almanac that Algalita is planning to survey the other four marine gyres in its brand new 5 Gyres project. Anna showed up on a bicycle carrying everything she needed for her Algalita booth for Opportunity Green. She was also a land crew-member of the Junk Raft, a first ocean-going vessel constructed from 15,000 plastic bottles and a Cessna 310 cabin, which sailed in Summer 2008 and predated the upcoming launch of David de Rothschild’s Plastiki.

Adam Lowry, Method (click to enlarge)

Another excellent example of the thinkers and doers to be found at Opportunity Green would be Method co-founder Adam Lowry, who spoke to conferees with broad strokes about how to keep one’s heart in his business, complementing his head. Lowry’s accessible style and thoughtful approach to creating and maintaining his business have put Method products on the shelves of major American retailers including WalMart and large grocery chains. If you asked Lowry why he co-founded Method, he’d tell you he was tired of the minimal options he found for everyday products. And Lowry was only one of hundreds of conferees exercising their brainpower and hearts to do green business.

Freya Williams, OgilvyEarth (click to enlarge)

Freya Williams, co-founder of OgilvyEarth, Ogilvy’s sustainability practice division, also shone brightly as a forward thinker. Conceived as a positive means to focus vital attention on the upcoming climate talks in Copenhagen, Williams’ presentation on the development of OgilvyEarth’s Hopenhagen, showed us the “campaign for United Nations Secretary General Ban-ki Moon to help effect a positive outcome from the climate change negotiations in Copenhagen in December 2009.” Followers of Blue Planet Almanac can sign the petition for Hopenhagen at the upper-right corner of any page.

Volunteer Amanda Crater of CraterCom & BusinessWeek's Helen Walters clowning at the after party

An interesting philosophy which Opportunity Green’s founders expressed was the extensive logistical help from their volunteers, who looked to be around 30 in number. In a balanced atmosphere of Fortune companies and startups, trained volunteers were at our service to provide directions to sessions, find vendor booths and help media reps locate presenters. This should be taken a good sign that Opportunity Green is attracting thoughtful talent at every level and isn’t strictly about profit. All the volunteers either knew how to answer questions and solve problems, or knew exactly who to ask. At Opportunity Green’s closing presentation the volunteers were thanked profusely for their invaluable logistical assistance.

So, when millions of us are using the thoughtful green products and services launched at Opportunity Green, we can thank the thousands of companies and volunteers who made it a point to get involved and do their best for everyone. If you want your business to be sustainable, and to be on the leading edge of the movement that’s really gonna save humanity’s biscuits, then you might consider putting your head together with others of like mind at this excellent conference of some of the best and brightest.

by Jennifer Schonberger, for The Motley Fool, November 12, 2009.

“Too often, executive compensation in the U.S. is ridiculously out of line with performance,” Warren Buffett stated in his 2006 annual report to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders.

Nell Minow, editor and co-founder of The Corporate Library, a research firm that focuses on corporate governance, would likely agree with Buffett. On a recent visit to Fool headquarters, Minow — whom BusinessWeek once dubbed the “queen of good corporate governance” — said she believes executive compensation is at the root of what’s wrong with corporate governance today.

Minow’s company grades corporate management teams on the job they’re doing. Out of the 3,500 companies The Corporate Library rates, just 17 have As.

If companies want a good grade, Minow says, they must get compensation right. Minow weights compensation structures heavily because she has found that excessive compensation is the best predictor of investment risk, litigation risk, and liability risk. “Too many pay plans today are all upside and no downside,” Minow says. “We find that when there is no downside to the pay plan, people don’t try very hard.”…(continue reading)

Here’s the lead of my story introducing a big new project and special report I’ve been working on the last few months. It’s called “The World’s Most Intriguing New Companies,” and highlights 25 of the world’s coolest startups with game-changing potential.

In addition to my story and the list, the package also includes five profiles of standouts companies on the list: Epizyme, Driptech, Layar, Phycal, and China Water & Energy. And that’s not all! We’ve also created an interactive slide show of the 25 startups, plus an online extra about another Chicago startup called CitySourced. Check it out and let us know what you think.

Fertile Ground for Startups
History shows that a certain breed of entrepreneur feeds off adverse conditions, and this recession is no exception

By Spencer E. Ante

Who needs job security? In June 2008, as the recession was moving from bad to worse, Caterina Fake gave up a comfortable, executive-level job at Yahoo! (YHOO) to launch a company. She left California and set up shop in New York City to co-found Hunch, a Web site that uses the experiences of others to help people make decisions. The 40-year-old, who had co-founded the photo-sharing site Flickr before it was acquired by Yahoo, couldn’t resist the idea of creating something new, whatever the economic headwinds. “The entrepreneurial spirit really thrives in situations of adversity,” says Fake. “The world is full of more possibility.”

Fake isn’t alone in betting on that. A crop of potentially groundbreaking companies is emerging from the wreckage of the Great Recession. No question, some will blow up, and others will fail to reach their potential. But the downturn has done little to dampen the entrepreneurial spirit. During the first half of this year, angel investors financed 24,500 new ventures, 6% more than during the same period last year, according to the Center for Venture Research. The overall amount of money going into startups has declined, but the figures suggest that this year will see the birth of roughly 50,000 companies with enough promise that someone is betting money on them. “It may be that this is the best time to start a company,” says Carl Schramm, president of the Kauffman Foundation, an organization that promotes entrepreneurship.

“VAST AND UNTAPPED”
With that backdrop, BusinessWeek set out to find the world’s most intriguing new companies. After much reporting and research, we’ve assembled a list that’s a barometer of innovation trends in the global economy, with startups that are pioneering new markets in biotechnology, clean technology, health care, and Web computing. Hunch is just one of 25 that made the final cut. Other standouts include Epizyme, a Massachusetts outfit creating cancer-fighting drugs that attack errant proteins; China Water & Energy, a Hong Kong company developing massive wind-power farms in the Chinese countryside; and Driptech, a California startup engineering low-cost irrigation systems for poor farmers around the world. “The markets that we are addressing in India and China are vast and untapped,” says Driptech’s 26-year-old founder, Peter Frykman.

Read the rest of the story and package here.

Oracle, Dell, Xerox and now HP – the high tech world as we knew it is changing fast. Companies that previously stood their ground and was seen as pillars of innovation are know swallowed into mega-companies that will challenge the marketplace with new services, products and offerings. Here is some selected tidbits from BusinessWeek in regards to the deal.

“Through its acquisition of networking gear maker 3Com, Hewlett-Packard will accelerate competition with Cisco Systems (CSCO), especially in China, practically overnight. Then comes the hard part. To make the most of the $2.7 billion deal, HP also needs to revitalize 3Com’s faded brand and persuade Western companies to take a chance on its products, designed largely in Asia.

Analysts were quick to see the logic in the planned acquisition, announced on Nov. 11. HP (HPQ) is attacking Cisco’s dominance of the market for gear that connects computers just as Cisco moves more aggressively into the market for computer systems, where HP is strong. Cisco on Nov. 3 struck a partnership with storage company EMC (EMC) and software company VMware (VMW) aimed atsupplying bundles of computers, storage, networking, and software.”

The article continues…

“HP’s bigger challenge in making the deal a success will be removing the tarnish that remains on the 3Com ’s brand in the U.S. and Europe as a result of years of mismanagement. While 3Com’s data-center networking gear has about 35% of the Chinese market, it’s practically absent from the largest companies in the U.S. and Europe, analysts say.”

Read the full article here.

Other good resources for this topic include: Barrons, WSJ, 24/7 Wall St., Mashable & Techcrunch.

-Update-

Someone over at NewsWeek finally did publish my comment, so I am removing it here. However, it’s still worth a look to SEE what was posted in their “Debate Room” this week, suggesting that low-income women should get married as a way out of poverty.

What do you think?

¿Para qué sirve tanto ránking de MBA?

En las últimas semanas han aparecido varias clasificaciones de escuela de negocios que ponen a los centros españoles en posiciones privilegiadas. Pero los resultados son tan dispares que hacen dudar de la credibilidad de estas listas, tan discutidas como aplaudidas.

El MBA del Instituto de Empresa es el mejor del mundo. Así lo decía The Wall Street Journal a mediados del pasado mes de septiembre. Veinte días después, el británico Financial Times aseguraba que Esade es una de las escuelas que imparten el mejor máster en management de Europa. En poco más de una semana, los profesionales españoles desayunaban con otro impactante titular en la prensa económica internacional, esta vez en The Economist: El MBA del IESE, el número uno del mundo. “¿IE… SE… Esade? ¿En qué quedamos?…”, se preguntan muchos ejecutivos ante el aluvión de ránkings de las últimas semanas.

Desde hace ya varios años el final del verano y el inicio de un nuevo curso académico da el pistoletazo de salida para un goteo incesante de diferentes clasificaciones de escuelas de negocios, MBA, programas para ejecutivos, etcétera. A los más antiguos ránkings de Business Week y Financial Times, se han unido los que ahora elaboran también Forbes, revista célebre por este tipo de listas, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal y América Economía.

Para mayor lío informativo –o, según la opinión de algunos, desinformativo–, cada una de estas publicaciones edita cada año varias clasificaciones, en función de los distintos tipos de programas que imparten estos centros: MBA full time, programas para ejecutivos, formación in company, MBA executive , másteres en management o financieros. Además, algunas clasificaciones publican varias listas con todos los centros, o sólo de Estados Unidos o de Europa. Para rizar el rizo, incluso las hay de MBA en función de si duran uno o dos años.

Lógicamente, las escuelas salen colocadas en posiciones diferentes en estas listas, lo que provoca confusión en el sector en lugar de cumplir su objetivo de ser una herramienta para orientar sobre la calidad de la enseñanza y la fiabilidad profesional de estas instituciones.

Este bombardeo clasificatorio termina por confundir a los reclutadores que fichan a los posgraduados en estos programas, a los candidatos que consultan los ránkings porque desean estudiar en una escuela de negocios puntera y a los responsables de formación de las empresas que envían a sus ejecutivos a cursos de directivos o contratan programas a medida para su compañía.

¿Por qué son tan dispares los resultados? Porque existen muchas listas que clasifican diversas versiones de programas diferentes y cada publicación utiliza una metodología distinta. Unas se basan en la opinión de los reclutadores, algunas en las valoraciones de los estudiantes y antiguos alumnos y otras en los datos de las propias escuelas.

‘Business Week’
El semanario norteamericano tiene en cuenta la opinión de los estudiantes y de las empresas que contratan a sus posgraduados.

Publica varias versiones de ránkings cada dos años: MBA full time, MBA executive y executive education. Los dos primeros se elaboran en función de tres criterios: la opinión de los estudiantes actuales y de los antiguos alumnos (45% de la puntuación), la valoración de las empresas reclutadoras (45%) y el número de publicaciones de sus profesores en una serie de cabeceras (10%).

Para evitar oscilaciones demasiado grandes de una edición a otra del ránking se tienen en cuenta los dos anteriores: 50% del peso a la actual clasificación, y un 25% para cada una de los dos publicados antes.

En cuanto a la lista de los programas ejecutivos, se realiza a través de una encuesta a las empresas que han recibido los cursos.

‘Financial Times’
El diario británico publica cinco listas diferentes a lo largo del año: Global MBA en enero, executive education en mayo, dividida a su vez en dos clasificaciones: programas a medida y cursos en abierto; en septiembre, la de másteres en management, adaptados a Bolonia y dirigidos a recién titulados universitarios; en octubre, la de executive MBA y en diciembre la de centros europeos.

Las listas de MBA de FT se basan en la opinión de los antiguos alumnos y en datos de las propias escuelas de negocios. Especial importancia tienen los estudiantes que se graduaron tres años antes, con un peso muy importante para el tema salarial: el incremento que hayan logrado desde entonces y el nivel de retribución alcanzado.

Para que no haya cambios drásticos utiliza la misma ponderación que Business Week con las tres últimas clasificaciones.

‘América Economía’
La revista chilena, propiedad del Grupo Dow Jones que también edita The Wall Street Journal, elabora un ránking de MBA y otro de programas para ejecutivos. Tiene en cuenta cuestiones como el prestigio de la escuela, su red de contactos, el número de solicitudes de admisión, sus actividades en Latinoamérica y el coste.

‘Forbes’
La clasificación bianual de MBA de la revista estadounidense calcula el retorno de la inversión mediante una encuesta a los posgraduados hace cinco años. Al precio del programa se añaden los gastos de vivir en la ciudad en la que se estudia y el coste de oportunidad del tiempo dedicado. Esto se relaciona con lo que se ha ganado en los cinco años siguientes a la graduación, menos lo que se hubiera ingresado de igual forma de no haber participado en el programa.

‘The Economist’
La publicación británica elabora una clasificación anual de MBA full time basada en una encuesta a antiguos alumnos de los tres últimos años (20% de la puntuación final) y en los datos aportados por las propias escuelas de negocios (80% de la valoración), analizando cuatro aspectos: la apertura de nuevas oportunidades laborales, el desarrollo personal, el incremento salarial y el networking.

Al igual que Business Week y FT, para evitar fluctuaciones exageradas, el 50% del ránking es consecuencia de la lista de este año, el 30% la del año pasado y el 20% la de hace dos años.

‘The Wall Street Journal’
El diario estadounidense basaba su ránking anual de MBA full time en la opinión de los reclutadores, pero anunció que no volvería a elaborar esta clasificación. Una tercera parte de los puntos procedía de la opinión de los empleadores sobre la preparación de los graduados en 20 competencias. Otro tercio, de la fidelidad de las empresas a la escuela: cuánto tiempo llevaban seleccionando titulados en ese centro y si pensaba seguir haciéndolo en el futuro. El resto de la puntuación de esta clasificación se otorgaba en función del número de países distintos del que procedían los reclutadores.

Este año ha publicado una clasificación de MBA de sólo un año de duración –exactamente entre 10 y 15 meses–, no basándose en reclutadores, sino en la opinión de estudiantes actuales y antiguos alumnos, lo que excluye a muchas universidades estadounidenses y algunos centros europeos como IESE, que tienen másteres de dos cursos.

Fuente: www.expansionyempleo.com

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Seth Godin

Here is an excerpt from my interview of Godin. The complete interview is also available.

Morris: Your blog, http://sethgodin.typepad.com, is one of the most popular and deservedly so. What do you know now about blogging that you wish you knew when you launched it?

Godin: I figured out most of what I know about blogging pretty early on. The thing that distracted me for a long time, though, was confusing noisy people with important people. I know how, for example, to write a blog post that gets a lot of traffic, a lot of discussion–but not necessarily the kind of people I want to reach or the kind of message I want to spread. So now, I write what I think needs to be written, not what the in-crowd necessarily wants to read.

Morris: Here’s a related question. What are two or three of the most common misconceptions about blogging? In fact, what is the reality?

Godin: Blogging isn’t tweeting. At least for me, blogging is an asynchronous essay, a chance to lay out a thought, gather direct, non-anonymous feedback and repeat. It’s not a conversation, because a conversation happens like a phone call–in synchronization–and it is almost between two people. I love the fact that I don’t have to wait a year for a book to come out in order to bring an idea to the world.

The fact that there’s no barrier to publication, though, makes a lot of people uncomfortable. That’s because they can’t hide. You just have to do it, no one to blame.

Morris: Robert Putnam has written that we are increasingly “bowling alone,” losing many of our voluntary associations with others. Yet, you have written of the rise of “tribes,” and described how people are finding each other and creating their own tribes. I agree. But can the interests and objectives of tribes be so narrow that their proliferation creates even more divisions within our society?

Godin: There have always been divisions. 150 people and [Robin] Dunbar says we spin off a new tribe. There was a division between the Lions and Kiwanis, between the Sharks and the Jets and between the Montagues and the Capulets. The thing about Tribes is that people desperately want to belong to them, and the problem with bowling is that there’s just too much overhead. Getting into a league as a trusted member takes about 1000 times as long as doing something similar online, and we just don’t think we have the time for that.

* * *

If you wish to read the complete interview, please contact me at interllect@mindspting.com.

You are urged to check out the resources at these Web sites:

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/about.html

http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/

An important reason that the housing market is stabilizing is the reduction in inventory. Current sales and inventories suggest that supply will decline below the pre-2006 levels by the end of 2009.

But analysts say that the stabilization of the market doesn’t mean that prices will rise anytime soon. They point to what they call “shadow inventory,” foreclosed homes that banks are holding off the markets. They predict that these homes will hit the market in spring 2010.

But overall, they are optimistic that the housing recovery is built on an improving economy and say that the market will continue to stabilize.

Source: BusinessWeek.com, James C. Cooper (11/09/2009)

Photo by kasei via Flickr

Came upon BusinessWeeks‘ slide show titled “Fifty Ugliest Cars of the Past 50 Years” a few days ago and found myself not agreeing 100 percent with their picks. Tree huggers around the world, like me, will find it upsetting that a popular electric car made the list — the Toyota Prius.

Now I am not saying the car is the best in automobile design but I do not consider it ugly.  What it lacks in looks is made up by the fact that it helps one reduce carbon emissions and is a little better for the environment.

BusinessWeek describes it as having the style of a soybean. I do not have a Prius or a car for that matter but do have the Prius in mind when the time comes. I also like soybeans.

The list does include the gasoline guzzler that is the Hummer so I guess this inclusion makes up for what I think is a lack of judgement. Now I know the list is subjective. So let us know what you think about the slide show.

As with any list, the debate begins about which places don’t make the cut or get the attention that Chambers of Commerce across America love to see and promote. The Forbes Traveler list online has some scenic photos that only tell part of the story. A place can be beautiful, but that does not guarantee that luxury housing will hold its value there. Geography can influence a second home purchase far more. Human geography like jobs, health care, education and retirement.

An example would be the lovely 90210 ZIP code in Southern California, where not much has changed to make luxury home values rise since that 2008 BusinessWeek story by expert real estate writer Prashant Gopal. Not even a hit TV show can boost prices for a ZIP code these days.

It should be expected that, with video-enabled buyers and sellers, the way we find our ideal places to live, relocate or get a second home could be forever changed. Instead of lists, more and more Americans are going to be doing what Coldwell Banker “On Location” is doing with some of its research to motivate buyer interest based on life’s changes. College towns were a recent focus of the peppy video productions the firm has been posting and sharing on the Web.

So, who is it we trust anymore, when it comes to making a real estate investment that will be good for our lives and for our wallets? The best bet is to open those avenues of research, from news reports to social media and cross-examine the common wisdom. Oh, and remember that beauty is often in the eye of the beholder. We welcome comments about your favorite places right here.

Here’s an assortment of items from my inbox.

When is the Right Time to Start a Business? Now.
“When is it a good time to start a company? When you have a good idea!” Rob Hayes writes in this article for FastCompany.com, echoing much of the thinking I’m seeing around this question. Hayes, a veteran venture capitalist, observes that before the recession he was seeing a high rate of “FNACs” or Feature Not A Company business concepts, but he notes that the recession has had a positive effect by thinning the number of these pretenders. “While the venture capital spigot is not as open as it was last year, the investment dollars out there are flowing disproportionately to the obviously great companies.”

Thirty Conversations on Design
Little & Company is celebrating their thirtieth anniversary in business this year. The Minneapolis-based firm has steadily established itself as a force on the national design scene. In recognition of the anniversary, L&Co has produced Thirty Conversations on Design, a video compilation of short conversations with global design leaders. Massimo Vignelli, Erik Spiekermann, and Paula Scher are all featured.

Bruce Nussbaum Speaks with Tim Brown and Roger Martin in NYC
BusinessWeek contributor Bruce Nussbaum will serve as moderator for what looks like it will be a fascinating conversation on design and design thinking with two giants in the field—both of whom have new books out (I wrote about Brown’s book in this October 9th post). The event is November 11 at 4:00 at the Thomson Reuters Building on Times Square in New York. It’s sponsored by the Rotman School of Business in Toronto (where Roger Martin serves as dean). To register, click here.

Since I work for a digital agency, I rarely get to do print. This award-winning ad promoted Business Exchange, a user-generated news and community site sponsored by Business Week Magazine.