Consumers in China: The true meaning of san yao wu

March 18, 2014 Leave a comment

Consumers in China: The true meaning of san yao wu

China’s new consumer law has local and foreign firms worried

Mar 15th 2014 | SHANGHAI | From the print edition

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FIFTY-TWO years ago this week, John Kennedy gave a speech to Congress in which he argued that consumers “are the only important group in the economy who are not effectively organised, whose views are often not heard.” His eloquent plea for their protection led to the United Nations guidelines for consumer protection and to the annual celebration of World Consumer-Rights Day on March 15th. Read more of this post

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A tiny Hong Kong store measuring just 12 square metres (130 square feet) has sold for more than €16.5m, as prices reach astronomical levels in a city ranked the most expensive for retailers in the world

March 18, 2014 Leave a comment

Tiny Hong Kong store sells for €16.5m record

Friday 14 March 2014 14.51

A tiny Hong Kong store measuring just 12 square metres (130 square feet) has sold for more than €16.5m, as prices reach astronomical levels in a city ranked the most expensive for retailers in the world. Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

Why Good Managers Are So Rare

March 18, 2014 Leave a comment

Why Good Managers Are So Rare

by Randall Beck and James Harter  |   8:00 AM March 13, 2014

Gallup has found that one of the most important decisions companies make is simply whom they name manager. Yet our analysis suggests that they usually get it wrong. In fact, Gallup finds that companies fail to choose the candidate with the right talent for the job 82% of the time. Read more of this post

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Should You Automate Your Life So that You Can Work Harder?

March 18, 2014 Leave a comment

Should You Automate Your Life So that You Can Work Harder?

by Sarah Green  |   10:56 AM March 13, 2014

Would you pay someone in the Philippines to answer your email for you — even your personal messages? Or hire strangers on the internet to plan your spouse’s big birthday party? Or throw meat, vegetables, and butter into a blender and call it dinner? Read more of this post

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How to Deal with Unfamiliar Situations

March 18, 2014 Leave a comment

How to Deal with Unfamiliar Situations

by Srini Pillay  |   10:00 AM March 13, 2014

Have you recently switched jobs or positions and wondered “What’s going on here?” Have you been given a new task or a new technology that’s completely unfamiliar? Are you working with people who come from different backgrounds and not really sure if you’re all on the same page? Dealing with unfamiliar situations and people is challenging, of course, because we don’t yet have everything figured out. Over time, we adjust. But how can we get better at dealing with the new and unfamiliar—from the start? Read more of this post

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Why the Greek Yogurt Craze Should be a Wake-Up Call to Big Food

March 18, 2014 Leave a comment

Why the Greek Yogurt Craze Should be a Wake-Up Call to Big Food

by Manny Picciola and Stuart Jackson  |   8:00 AM March 14, 2014

In 2005, Hamdi Ulukaya purchased a yogurt factory in upstate New York that had been shuttered by Kraft Foods. He wanted to use it to produce a line of strained, or “Greek,” yogurt called Chobani. If you’ve been in a grocery store lately, you probably know the rest — the brand caught on quickly. But for years, as Chobani gobbled up market share, the major food companies stuck to their regular lines of yogurt. Chobani went on to become the second largest yogurt seller in the U.S. and cost General Mills, Dannon, and other established players billions of dollars in sales. And new reports say that Chobani is talking with investors about a deal that would value the company at $5 billion. Read more of this post

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Aussie biotech’s super condoms get green light for Japan

March 18, 2014 Leave a comment

Aussie biotech’s super condoms get green light for Japan

March 14, 2014 – 3:22PM

Jessica Gardner

The Japanese condom market is worth $500 million a year.

Biotechnology hopeful Starpharma is set to earn first sales from its patented anti-viral and anti-bacterial gel formulation when new condoms that the company claims guard against sexually transmitted diseases hit Japanese shelves in the coming months. Read more of this post

Filed under Health, Macro Trends

Australian companies are focusing too much on efficiency and too little on growth: departing REA Group CEO Greg Ellis

March 18, 2014 Leave a comment

Australian companies are focusing too much on efficiency and too little on growth: departing REA Group CEO Greg Ellis

Published 14 March 2014 12:17

Jake Mitchell

Outgoing REA Group chief executive Greg Ellis says Australian businesses are hurting the economy by spending too much of their capital on improving existing operations rather than investing in new growth opportunities. Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

10 Rejection Letters Sent to Famous People

March 18, 2014 Leave a comment

10 Rejection Letters Sent to Famous People

Jennifer M Wood

We’ve all heard that the road to success is paved with failure. But that doesn’t make rejection any easier to swallow. What does help? Knowing that the world’s most talented people have been there, too. Here are 10 actual rejection letters that prove it.

1. U2 Read more of this post

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Tipping Point: U.S. Mobile Data Revenues Outweighed Those Of Voice In 2013, On Track For $100B/Year

March 18, 2014 Leave a comment

Tipping Point: U.S. Mobile Data Revenues Outweighed Those Of Voice In 2013, On Track For $100B/Year

Posted yesterday by Ingrid Lunden (@ingridlunden)

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China may be the biggest of all when it comes to the sheer volume of users in its mobile market — 700 smartphone and tablet users, and counting — but when it comes to revenues from the new wave of data services beyond legacy voice calls, it’s the U.S. that continues to lead. New research out today from Chetan Sharma notes that collectively, mobile data revenues in the U.S. market were $90 billion for 2013, and that this year it will become the first country to pass $100 billion annually. Read more of this post

Filed under TMT Trends

India’s TeaBox Raises Seed Funding From Accel To Build An Online Starbucks For Disrupting Global Tea Market

March 18, 2014 Leave a comment

India’s TeaBox Raises Seed Funding From Accel To Build An Online Starbucks For Disrupting Global Tea Market

Posted 1 hour ago by Pankaj Mishra (@pankajontech)

In a world rediscovering its old tea drinking habits, finding a freshly-brewed cup of the hot beverage is still very tough, especially if you are a tea aficionado based in the U.S. or Europe. For the world’s second most popular beverage after water, the distribution and production models are still very ancient, perhaps waiting for their own version of Starbucks to happen. Read more of this post

Filed under TMT Trends

It is the nature of governance that determines whether people deploy their talents and energy in pursuit of innovation, production, and job creation, or in rent seeking and lobbying for political protection

March 18, 2014 Leave a comment

KEMAL DERVIŞ

Kemal Derviş, former Minister of Economic Affairs of Turkey and former Administrator for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), is Vice President of the Brookings Institution.

MAR 13, 2014

Good Governance and Economic Performance

BERLIN – The debate about emerging countries’ growth prospects is now in full swing. Pessimists stress the feared reversal of private capital flows, owing to the US Federal Reserve’s tapering of its purchases of long-term assets, as well as the difficulties of so-called second- and third-generation structural reforms and the limits to “catch up” growth outside of manufacturing. Optimists argue that the potential for rapid growth remains immense, owing to better macroeconomic fundamentals and the promise of best-practice technology spreading throughout the emerging world. Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

Starbucks gives up exclusive license to high-end Keurig pods

March 18, 2014 Leave a comment

Starbucks gives up exclusive license to high-end Keurig pods

9:20am EDT

(Reuters) – Starbucks Corp (SBUX.O: Quote, Profile,Research, Stock Buzz) will get a wider selection of Keurig Green Mountain Inc’s (GMCR.O: Quote, Profile, Research,Stock Buzz) single-serve K-Cup coffee packs, in exchange for giving up the exclusive license for Keurig’s highest-end coffee packs, the companies said on Friday. Read more of this post

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How Steve Jobs Got the iPhone Into Japan

March 18, 2014 Leave a comment

How Steve Jobs Got the iPhone Into Japan

By Mark Milian – Mar 12, 2014

The iPhone, it’s safe to say, is big in Japan. Toward the end of last year, three out of every four smartphones sold in Japan were iPhones, according to market researcher Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. Tim Cook said during Apple’s most recent earnings call that its phone sales in the country shot up 40 percent after it signed a deal with NTT Docomo. Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

Bill Gates: The Rolling Stone Interview; “In his view, the world is a giant operating system that just needs to be debugged”

March 18, 2014 Leave a comment

Bill Gates: The Rolling Stone Interview

The richest man in the world explains how to save the planet

by JEFF GOODELL

MARCH 13, 2014

At 58, Bill Gates is not only the richest man in the world, with a fortune that now exceeds $76 billion, but he may also be the most optimistic. In his view, the world is a giant operating system that just needs to be debugged. Gates’ driving idea – the idea that animates his life, that guides his philanthropy, that keeps him late in his sleek book-lined office overlooking Lake Washington, outside Seattle – is the hacker’s notion that the code for these problems can be rewritten, that errors can be fixed, that huge systems – whether it’s Windows 8, global poverty or climate change – can be improved if you have the right tools and the right skills. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the philanthropic organization with a $36 billion endowment that he runs with his wife, is like a giant startup whose target market is human civilization. Read more of this post

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Missing plane may cool Malaysia tourism, airline bookings

March 18, 2014 Leave a comment

Missing plane may cool Malaysia tourism, airline bookings

4:04am EDT

By Brian Leonal and Al-Zaquan Amer Hamzah

SINGAPORE/KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – Loss-making Malaysian Airline System risks losing out on lucrative corporate business from travelers outside the country in the wake of the disappearance of a China-bound flight carrying 239 people, travel agents warned. Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

Lessons From Pixar President Ed Catmull: Your Ideas Are “Ugly Babies,” You Are Their Champion

March 18, 2014 Leave a comment

LESSONS FROM PIXAR PRESIDENT ED CATMULL: YOUR IDEAS ARE “UGLY BABIES,” YOU ARE THEIR CHAMPION

PIXAR PRESIDENT ED CATMULL INSISTS THAT EVERY MOVIE THE COMPANY MAKES STARTS OUT “UGLY”–AND THAT EARLY, ILL-DEFINED IDEAS NEED PROTECTION THE MOST, LEST THEY DIE TOO YOUNG.

BY ED CATMULL

After the original leaders of animation left Disney in the 1990s, the new people running things were from production. And they brought their values, which were to keep the production people busy and productive with one movie after another. So story development was organized in the same way they organized production. As a consequence of this “feed the beast” mentality, a balance was lost at Disney. Read more of this post

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Chipotle set out to challenge fast food trends and be better than the competition–in the end, they launched a new industry. Here’s how they rose to the top of the fast-food chain

March 18, 2014 Leave a comment

HOW CHIPOTLE CHANGED AMERICAN FAST FOOD FOREVER

CHIPOTLE SET OUT TO CHALLENGE FAST FOOD TRENDS AND BE BETTER THAN THE COMPETITION–IN THE END, THEY LAUNCHED A NEW INDUSTRY. HERE’S HOW THEY ROSE TO THE TOP OF THE FAST-FOOD CHAIN.

BY DENISE LEE YOHN

In 1991, Steve Ells couldn’t afford to eat regularly at the legendary Stars restaurant where he was working as a $12-an-hour line cook. Instead, he was more frequently found gorging himself on giant burritos at a taquería in San Francisco’s Mission District called Zona Rosa. It was there, over a carnitas burrito, that Ells had the insight that would change his life–and American fast food–forever. Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

The Only 8 Numbers You Need To Do Math

March 18, 2014 Leave a comment

The Only 8 Numbers You Need To Do Math

ANDY KIERSZ MARKETS  MAR. 14, 2014, 6:25 PM

Happy Pi Day!

It’s March 13, or 3/14. Those are the first three digits of Pi, the ratio that enables us to compute the circumference of a circle. Read more of this post

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March 14, 2015 Will Be A Once-In-A-Century Thrill For Math Geeks

March 18, 2014 Leave a comment

March 14, 2015 Will Be A Once-In-A-Century Thrill For Math Geeks

SAM RO FINANCE  MAR. 14, 2014, 6:00 AM

Anyone who remembers middle school geometry knows at least a little bit about Pi, the ratio that allows us to compute the circumference, area, and volume of round things. Read more of this post

Filed under Life

People make commitments – to a nation, faith, calling or loved ones – and endure the sacrifices those commitments demand. Often this depth is built by fighting against natural evolutionary predispositions

March 18, 2014 Leave a comment

The Deepest Self

MARCH 13, 2014

David Brooks

There is, by now, a large literature on the chemistry and biology of love and sex. If you dive into that literature, you learn pretty quickly that our love lives are biased by all sorts of deep unconscious processes. When men become fathers, their testosterone levels drop, thus reducing their sex drive. There’s some evidence that it’s the smell of their own infants (but not other people’s infants) that sets this off. Read more of this post

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Pick gene pool with care on family concerns; Sir Henry Keswick maintains that shares in Jardine Matheson have outperformed those in Berkshire Hathaway

March 18, 2014 Leave a comment

March 14, 2014 8:12 am

Pick gene pool with care on family concerns

By Neil Collins

While Keswicks nurture, newer families piggy-bank raid

Sir Henry Keswick maintains that shares in Jardine Matheson have outperformed those in Berkshire Hathaway, the stock widely considered about the best long-term investment on the planet. Well, it depends where you start, but Jardine shares have multiplied 10 times in 12 years, never mind the dividends. Read more of this post

Filed under Life

In less than a decade, Marco Dunand and Daniel Jaeggi have built Mercuria from a 10-person company supplying oil to a pair of Polish refineries into the world’s fourth-largest commodity trader, with revenue topping $100 billion

March 18, 2014 Leave a comment

Mercuria: A Commodity Trading Powerhouse’s Quiet Rise

By Andy Hoffman and Chanyaporn Chanjaroen March 13, 2014

In less than a decade, Marco Dunand and Daniel Jaeggi have built Mercuria from a 10-person company supplying oil to a pair of Polish refineries into the world’s fourth-largest commodity trader, with revenue topping $100 billion last year. They’re not stopping there. Dunand and Jaeggi are on the verge of striking a deal to buy JPMorgan Chase’s (JPM) $3.3 billion commodities unit, according to two people with knowledge of the situation. “This gives them a strong opportunity for growth and puts them close to the top players in the league,” says Roland Rechtsteiner, a partner at management consultant Oliver Wyman. “Scale is going to be more important than ever.” Read more of this post

Filed under Innovation

Hedge Funds’ Big Bet on Fannie and Freddie May End Up Worthless

March 18, 2014 Leave a comment

Hedge Funds’ Big Bet on Fannie and Freddie May End Up Worthless

By Jody Shenn March 13, 2014

Almost six years after bad home loans crippled the economy, Perry Capital and other big hedge funds are battling the government over the future of mortgage companies Fannie Mae (FNMA) and Freddie Mac (FMCC), which needed taxpayer bailouts to survive. If the investors prevail in the courts or in Congress, they could enjoy one of the biggest paydays in history. And Todd Westhus, who spearheaded Perry Capital’s purchase of Fannie and Freddie preferred shares when they were trading for pennies in 2010, could join the ranks of hedge fund legends George Soros and John Paulson. The bet on the once-battered stocks is “the biggest distressed trade in history,” says David Ford, co-founder of hedge fund Latigo Partners, which owns shares in Fannie and Freddie. Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

Planet Labs aims for new frontier of image data; 100 small satellites will photograph entire globe every 24 hours

March 18, 2014 Leave a comment

March 14, 2014 4:06 am

Planet Labs aims for new frontier of image data

By Tim Bradshaw in San Francisco

Just a few years ago Ordnance Survey, Britain’s national mapping agency, boasted that its map of every corner of the country was updated at least once every 18 months. “That’s a lot of change,” it said in a 2011 blogpost. Read more of this post

Filed under TMT Trends

Li Ka-shing steps back from ports business

March 18, 2014 Leave a comment

March 14, 2014 6:46 am

Li Ka-shing steps back from ports business

By Paul J Davies in Hong Kong

Two of Hong Kong’s biggest tycoons have taken diverging approaches in adjusting their portfolios, as Cheng Yu Tung’s sprawling New World Development group said it would reacquire its Chinese arm while Li Ka-shing took a step away from his ports business. Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

There are no runners-up in this tech boom; Business models are more profitable but competition is rampant

March 18, 2014 Leave a comment

March 14, 2014 8:33 am

There are no runners-up in this tech boom

By Henny Sender

Business models are more profitable but competition is rampant

Silicon Valley is known for its paranoia. It is understandable that the entrepreneurs and venture capitalists who finance business there are looking over their shoulders wondering who next is going to marginalise their companies and their investments. Tech companies can have an incredibly short life – the definition of cool can change in a nanosecond. Read more of this post

Filed under TMT Trends

Europe’s coco bonds risk turning into coco pops

March 18, 2014 Leave a comment

March 13, 2014 6:00 am

Europe’s coco bonds risk turning into coco pops

By Ralph Atkins

Danger of safety valves turning into poor deal for investors

Beware financial innovation – this was an important lesson of the global financial crisis. Regulators and investors have become wise to “financial market engineering” – the dreaming up by bankers of new ways of apparently spreading risks. Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

Former Indonesian president Megawati Sukarnoputri has ended months of speculation by selecting the country’s most popular politician, Jakarta governor Joko Widodo, as her party’s candidate for July’s transformative presidential election

March 18, 2014 Leave a comment

March 14, 2014 9:06 am

Widodo to contest Indonesian presidency

By Ben Bland in Jakarta

Former Indonesian president Megawati Sukarnoputri has ended months of speculation by selecting the country’s most popular politician, Jakarta governor Joko Widodo, as her party’s candidate for July’s transformative presidential election. Read more of this post

Filed under Macro Trends

Games creators ask investors to play along

March 18, 2014 Leave a comment

March 13, 2014 12:40 pm

Games creators ask investors to play along

By Richard Waters

‘Candy Crush’ maker’s IPO shines a spotlight on a current bonanza

Why would any sane investor put money into a business that depends on the fickle abilities of a creative few to deliver blockbuster hits? Read more of this post

Filed under TMT Trends

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