Posts tagged as:

article

Calculating Consumer Happiness at Any Price

by Erik on December 13, 2009

in Economy, Interesting, Markets, Philosophy

If technology and systems didn’t come so naturally, I really believe that I would have become an economist. I just find it fascinating. The “business information systems” major was such a perfect fit for my abilities, that I didn’t really think twice about selecting it when I was choosing my major at Lehigh. But, as I continue to read up on the current economic climate, work in an industry where consumer confidence greatly matters to our offerings, and I uncover little gems like this article by John Tierney, I realize that my interests run far deeper than technology and design. I wonder if I should have studied more micro and macro economic principles than the 4 semesters I ended up with…

“Maybe, sometimes, old-fashioned economics is just about right,” Dr. Shayo says. “Maybe when it comes to food, people do have reasonably stable preferences. Some people like shrimp and some don’t, even if it’s worth a lot of money.” [via NY Times]

Check out the article. It’s a rather interesting read about consumer preferences and how price affects those preferences. Oh, how I fondly remember those indifference curves and plotting consumer preferences…

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

As Slowdown Drags On, IBM Looks to Governments for New Growth

by Erik on August 6, 2009

in IBM

“There has been a very significant change at IBM,” says Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter, who features the company among a handful of others in her upcoming book “SuperCorp.”Rather than merely making sales calls to push computers, Ms. Kanter says, IBM is showing customers how to revamp business functions. IBM “is back,” she says.

via Wall Street Journal.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

The Life Cycle of a Business

by Erik on July 25, 2009

in Interesting, Philosophy

What is a business - anyway?  As usual, Wikipedia offers a pretty good definition:  “In economics, business is the social science of managing people to organize and maintain collective productivity toward accomplishing particular creative and productive goals, usually to generate profit.”  Not surprisingly, as is the case for any highly complex system or entity, this is just one of multiple definitions.

In quantum mechanics we learn that questions like “what is an electron?” are meaningless unless one also asks “what is your purpose in asking this question?”

An electron is sometimes best thought of as a particle, and sometimes best thought of as a wave depending on what models or measurements one is after. Similarly, one cannot separate asking what a business is from how one wants to use the answer. But I am actually most satisfied with the people-centric definition Wikipedia gives, because I truly believe it is the most important one.

[via Irving Wladawsky-Berger]

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Recession sends Americans to the Internet

by Erik on July 16, 2009

in Internet, Recession

It’s not just family and friends that Americans are turning to for advice and support to cope with the prolonged recession; many have found a counselor in the Internet.

More than two-thirds of American adults — or 88 percent of U.S. Internet users — went online for help with recession-induced personal economic issues and to gather information on national economic problems, a study released on Wednesday said. [via Reuters]

File this one under: “not surprising in the least.”

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Google Chrome OS: Be A Part of the Cloud

11 July 2009 Cloud Computing

Cloud computing could become mainstream with Google’s annoucement this week to release the Chrome operating system for NetBook PCs.
I believe the cloud is the platform of the future, and Google is uniquely poised with their already popular office suite, Google Docs, and their other Google Apps which do just about everything owners of netbooks would be […]

Read the full article →

Long-Distance Drops As Wireless Gains

1 July 2009 Interesting

NPR has an interesting article on the switch from land-line telephone companies to wireless. This reminds me of the AP piece that talked about how cell-only households now outnumber traditional phone households.That statistic points to problem in our current method of landline national polling for elections, which was brought to everyone’s attention in 2008. As […]

Read the full article →

The Big Shift: Measuring the Forces of Change

30 June 2009 Business Metrics

Really interesting article from Deloitte’s Lang Davison about the “problem” with traditional business metrics. Relates back to the Shift Index I spoke about earlier.

During a steep recession, managers obsess over short-term performance goals such as cost cutting, sales, and market share growth. Meanwhile, economists chart data like GDP growth, unemployment levels, and balance-of-trade shifts to […]

Read the full article →

Restaurants finding Twitter a cheap, effective marketing tool

29 June 2009 Interesting

I was having a discussion the other day with one of my employees about the benefit of twitter and how it can be utilized in a business setting as a value-adding marketing tool. He was not so convinced. He could only see twitter as a way to tell people what you were doing at any […]

Read the full article →

IBM’s Green Sigma Adds Coalition of Heavyweights

24 June 2009 Alternative Energy

photo credit: photomequickbooth
IBM has brought Cisco Systems and a host of the world’s biggest energy services companies into partnership with its flagship energy efficiency and carbon reduction consulting service, Greentech Media reports.
Last year, IBM launched a consulting practice, called “Green Sigma,” based on taking sensor data and analysis software and applying them toward reducing an […]

Read the full article →

AP Issues Strict Facebook, Twitter Guidelines to Staff

23 June 2009 Censorship

photo credit: miralize
Wired.com posted an article pointing to a new set of guidelines from the AP regarding a corporate policy about staff posting to twitter and Facebook.
The Associated Press is adopting a stringent social-networking policy for its employees, informing them to police their Facebook profiles “to make sure material posted by others doesn’t violate AP standards.”
The […]

Read the full article →

 

Page 1 of 3123