Get outrageous to get ahead

Get outrageous to get ahead

Calls to raise productivity have never been more pressing, at a time when the outlook for world economic growth is uncertain. Even then, the reality of getting past the productivity plateau is a long-term challenge that many countries are all too familiar with.

BY GERRY TAN –

6 HOURS 52 MIN AGO

Calls to raise productivity have never been more pressing, at a time when the outlook for world economic growth is uncertain. Even then, the reality of getting past the productivity plateau is a long-term challenge that many countries are all too familiar with. At a time when businesses are facing increasing pressures to perform, what does it take for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to stay ahead of the game? Read more of this post

When Movies Trade on Real Life; Do the makers of films claiming to be based on or inspired by real stories have an allegiance to the truth, or just to the art of storytelling?

UPDATED SEPTEMBER 3, 2013 9:59 PM

When Movies Trade on Real Life

DEBATERS

Being True Is Hard Work PAMELA KATZ, SCREENWRITER

One must be accurate about someone’s life. But if you don’t illuminate something essential about their life, work and personality, you fail to tell the truth.

From Little Truth, a Bigger Truth AISHA HARRIS, SLATE

Inventing most of its characters and plot lines, “Lee Daniels’ The Butler” turns a benign life into a symbol of an epic struggle.

Manipulate History? So Did Shakespeare ROBERT B. TOPLIN, HISTORIAN

Cinematic historians exercise a good deal of artistic license because they make stories entertaining and understandable.

Filmmakers Have a Duty to Be Honest PAUL BYRNES, CRITIC

It’s foolish to assume no one will check a fact on the Internet. We all deserve a higher standard of truth.

A Blurred Line Between Fact and Fiction MOLLY HASKELL, CRITIC

Filmmakers need to have more faith in viewers, and viewers need to be more skeptical about filmmakers.

INTRODUCTION

This seems to be the year of the fact-based movie. After “Argo,” “Lincoln” and “Zero Dark Thirty“ dominated the Oscar buzz last year, more movies are based on or inspired by true stories. “Fruitvale Station” tells of the 2009 shooting of a young man by an Oakland transit officer and “Captain Phillips” will recount a merchant ship’s capture by Somali pirates. Other films out or coming out this year are based on the lives of Steve Jobs, Julian Assangeand Linda Lovelace. Often, in these films, accuracy is sacrificed for drama. But do the makers of films claiming to be based on or inspired by real stories have an allegiance to the truth, or just to the art of storytelling?

Read more of this post

Global warming fueling tornadoes: Japan

Global warming fueling tornadoes: Japan

Wednesday, September 4, 2013 – 10:28

Yusuke Tomiyama and Hiroyuki Oyama

The Japan News/Asia News Network

JAPAN – Tornadoes are relatively uncommon in Japan, but they have hit the nation with increasing frequency amid global warming. A tornado ripped through Saitama and Chiba prefectures on Monday, blowing roofs off of buildings and injuring dozens of people. The tornado was spawned by huge cumulonimbus clouds that rapidly developed in the Kanto region on Monday afternoon. Read more of this post

Bloomberg’s very strange headlines are in danger of making sense

Bloomberg’s very strange headlines are in danger of making sense

By Zachary M. Seward @zseward September 3, 2013

The famously bizarre and inscrutable headlines that often adorn Bloomberg News articles are a cherished joke among journalists, most of all within Bloomberg itself. But they may be in danger of losing their peculiar edge.

Some prototypically odd headlines from the past year:

∞ Feeding Naked Chef’s Chickens Killing Biggest Bond Rally
∞ Mao’s Red Flag May Need to Evoke Panda DNA to Beat Audi
∞ Harvard Women Freed From Urinal 50 Years After First Female MBA
∞ BMW to Amazon Space Demand Spurs Rush to Inland Empire

That Bloomberg writes sometimes incomprehensible titles for its article is no secret. The phenomenon has a hashtag and a parody Twitter account. But now, to the chagrin of some Bloomberg News staff, someone important has taken notice. Read more of this post

Revealed: UK Government let British company export nerve gas chemicals to Syria

Revealed: UK Government let British company export nerve gas chemicals to Syria

UK accused of ‘breath-taking laxity’ over export licence for potassium fluoride and sodium fluoride

CAHAL MILMO  , ANDY MCSMITH , NIKHIL KUMAR

MONDAY 02 SEPTEMBER 2013

The Government was accused of “breathtaking laxity” in its arms controls last night after it emerged that officials authorised the export to Syria of two chemicals capable of being used to make a nerve agent such as sarin a year ago. The Business Secretary, Vince Cable, will today be asked by MPs to explain why a British company was granted export licences for the dual-use substances for six months in 2012 while Syria’s civil war was raging and concern was rife that the regime could use chemical weapons on its own people. The disclosure of the licences for potassium fluoride and sodium fluoride, which can both be used as precursor chemicals in the manufacture of nerve gas, came as the US Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States had evidence that sarin  gas was used in last month’s atrocity in Damascus. Read more of this post

Chinese netizens jokes about Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia

China’s web reacts to Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia

September 4, 2013

by C. Custer

I think Nokia holds a special place in the hearts of a lot of Chinese mobile phone users. When I first moved to the country in 2007, my Chinese friends all told me: get a Nokia. They’re cheap, they’re durable, and they work; this was the mantra that helped the mobile phone company dominate China’s nascent mobile marketplace. Just a few years later, though, things have changed dramatically, as evidenced by Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia yesterday. Nokia’s dominance is long-gone in China, but could the acquisition put the once-popular company back on the upswing there? Sina Tech conducted a poll of 70,000 its readers — so mostly tech geeks, presumably — and found that more than 54 percent look favorably on the buyout, with just over 30 percent pessimistic about the company’s prospects under Microsoft’s wing and the remaining 14 percent not sure. The mood on Sina Weibo seems to be similar, with lots of people hoping the acquisition can re-invigorate the struggling company. Hope might be the key word there; China’s net users are definitely also engaging in a little bit of nostalgia for the (good?) old days when everybody had a Nokia brick. For example, this lengthy infographic charting Nokia’s handsets over the years is making the rounds. Of course, it wouldn’t be the Chinese web without jokes, so here’s a bit of one of the most popular images that’s being passed around. Translation by us:

Here’s The Key Thing You Should Know About Ronald Coase, The Great Economist Who Died Yesterday At 102

Here’s The Key Thing You Should Know About Ronald Coase, The Great Economist Who Died Yesterday At 102

JOSH BARRO SEP. 3, 2013, 4:43 AM 4,308 12

Ronald Coase, 1910-2013

Ronald Coase was one of those economists whose contributions were so significant and so longstanding that you assumed he had to be dead. But he wasn’t, until yesterday, when he died at the age of 102. Coase’s most famous contribution is the Coase Theorem, which holds that the problem of externalities—that is, me taking an action that imposes a cost on you—can be fixed without government action so long as property rights are clearly defined and transaction costs are low. My favorite example of the Coase Theorem in action relates to airline seats. A lot of people like to complain about airline passengers who recline, taking away precious knee-room. But Coase would have said there’s a simple solution to this problem: pay the person in front of you not to recline. If you value your knee space more than he values the option to lean back, the seat will stay upright where it belongs. There’s no need for the government, or the airline, to intervene to protect your knees. Read more of this post

South Koreans hope fortune-tellers point way to top of the class

South Koreans hope fortune-tellers point way to top of the class

8:13am EDT

By Jane Chung

SEOUL (Reuters) – Byun Mi-kyong sat quietly with her hands in her lap as she listened closely to every word the fortune-teller said about her daughter’s chances of getting into the right university. Dealing with intensely competitive college entrance exams has driven South Korean students to despair, and sometimes to suicide, as they fight for the few places in the best programs that are seen as the key to a successful career. Anxious parents have long sought hints from fortune-tellers about how well their children will do in school. But now Byun and others are turning to divination for specific guidance on picking the most promising activities, courses and colleges. Read more of this post

Philippine netizens have voiced outrage over a plan to spend 7.8 million pesos (about US$177,000) to replace a flagpole at a national park in Manila, accusing the government of misusing state funds

Outrage over multi-million peso flagpole

By Christine Ong
POSTED: 04 Sep 2013 12:35 AM
Philippine netizens have voiced outrage over a plan to spend 7.8 million pesos (about US$177,000) to replace a flagpole at a national park in Manila, accusing the government of misusing state funds.

MANILA: There is uproar in some quarters of the Philippines over a plan to spend millions of pesos on replacing a flagpole in a national park. The government is allotting 7.8 million pesos (about US$177,000) to replace the current 30-metre high pole standing in front of a monument of the country’s national hero, Jose Rizal, at Rizal Park in Manila. The new flagpole to be imported from China, will be 52 metres high and will include the installation of a mechanically-assisted pulley and a new marble base. Read more of this post

Mammal Virus Tally Seen Speeding Global Contagion Control

Mammal Virus Tally Seen Speeding Global Contagion Control

The mammalian world may harbor at least 320,000 viruses, scientists estimated in new research that aims to speed the control of new infectious killers. The tally, based on data collected from flying foxes in Bangladesh applied to the 5,486 known species of mammal, will help create a more systematic way of managing outbreaks, particularly those spreading from animals to humans, scientists from Columbia University and the EcoHealth Alliance wrote in a paper published today in the journal mBio. Zooneses, or diseases that transmit from vertebrate animals to humans, account for almost 70 percent of emerging infectious diseases including HIV, Ebola and severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, the scientists said. “This is a real breakthrough,” said Peter Daszak, a study author and president of EcoHealth Alliance, a biodiversity conservation organization. “Instead of just sitting here and waiting for them to emerge and kill us, we want to be ahead of the curve and fight them before they even kill the first ever person.” Money spent researching disease threats would represent a fraction of the cost of fighting a contagion such as SARS, whose economic impact is estimated at $16 billion, the scientists wrote in the study. The cost of uncovering all viruses in mammals is about $6.3 billion, and expenses could be cut to $1.4 billion by limiting discovery to 85 percent of estimated viral diversity, they said, based on their extrapolation of results.

To contact the reporter on this story: Natasha Khan in Hong Kong at nkhan51@bloomberg.net

How Havaianas built a global brand; Flip-flop maker excelled at planning and marketing

September 2, 2013 6:10 pm

How Havaianas built a global brand

By Dominique Turpin

The story

The Havaianas brand of rubber flip-flop sandals started life 50 years ago as a basic shoe for poor plantation workers in Brazil. The brand became a staple in the country before gaining fresh impetus in the mid-1990s, when parent company Alpargatas decided to reposition the declining brand as an aspirational fashion product. It hired leading designers to come up with attractive colours and designs and soon Brazilian and then international celebrities were wearing the new, colourful and stylish, higher-priced sandals. Sales grew rapidly. However, the market was saturated in Brazil, where Havaianas sold 850 pairs of flip-flops for every 1,000 people in 2007. And although it was enjoying strong overseas sales growth in 65 countries, it did not have a strategy for international expansion. In 2008 Marcio Luiz Simoes Utsch, Alpargatas chief executive, decided to try to turn Havaianas into Brazil’s first truly global brand. Read more of this post

“The Firm,” by Duff McDonald, chronicles the rise of McKinsey, the world’s most influential management consulting firm, but also cites its many failures.

SEPTEMBER 2, 2013, 9:14 PM

In a New Book, McKinsey & Co. Isn’t All Roses

By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN

“You can’t get fired for hiring McKinsey & Company.”

It is a refrain that has been whispered in the corner offices and halls of corporate America for years as a justification — or, at least, a rationalization — for hiring McKinsey, the world’s most influential management consulting firm. The secretive firm has been the go-to strategy consigliere for the globe’s top companies — from Procter & Gamble to American Express — as well as governments for more than a half century. Its influence is staggering. Consider this: More current and former Fortune 500 C.E.O.’s are alumni of McKinsey than of any other company. So why has its advice, at times, turned out to be so bad? Read more of this post

Banking grandee Lord Jacob Rothschild shuns private jets for EasyJet at a “jam-packed” airport

Banking grandee Lord Rothschild shuns private jets for EasyJet

Flying low-cost: Lord Jacob Rothschild made the trip back from his Corfu villa this week on EasyJet Photo: AP

By Harriet Dennys, City Diary Editor

7:00AM BST 29 Aug 2013

Lord Jacob Rothschild may own “the most fabulous” villa on Corfu, but he still flies home from holiday on EasyJet. The patriarch of the Rothschild’s family business, RIT Capital Partners, was spotted sitting quietly at a “jam-packed” Corfu airport on Monday, as he waited for the same budget flight as mortals without a £2bn banking dynasty to their name – not a private jet in sight. “Lord Rothschild wasn’t even on speedy boarding,” says Diary’s man at passport control. “He just queued up amongst the sunburnt and tattooed holidaymakers, who were no doubt unaware of this distinguished passenger.” Quite a contrast to the low-key investment banking grandee’s son Nat, whose forays into Indonesian coal miner Bumi have been nothing if not colourful. Last time financier Nat made a splash in the Med, he was hosting a £1m fortieth birthday party in the port of Montenegro – private jets galore.

Chinese Educators Look to American Classrooms; While the world may be dazzled by Chinese students’ test scores, educators in China worry that the lack of hands-on science learning is stifling innovation and critical thinking

September 2, 2013

Chinese Educators Look to American Classrooms

By DAN LEVIN

BEIJING — To prepare for an endless barrage of secondary-school exams, Zhang Ruifan learned to memorize entire science textbooks. So when his family sent him to high school in the United States, he was so far ahead of his fellow freshmen in math and science that he usually knew the correct answer even before the teacher had finished speaking. “I’d just blurt it out,” he said in an interview while back home here this summer. But Ruifan, 15, who goes by Derek in the United States, soon discovered that science was more than just facts and formulas meant to be regurgitated on tests. Read more of this post

Are family offices just private banks in family offices’ clothing? The new vogue for the title “family office” could be undermining the credibility of the model

FAMILY OFFICES AND NIGHT CLUBS

ARTICLE | 2 SEPTEMBER, 2013 12:43 PM | BY DAVID BAIN

What is it with family offices these days? They appear to be everywhere. How much so? Well for starters Bloomberg Markets recently ran a big story about the top 50 multi family offices in the world, which was picked up by much of the world’s financial press afterwards. Then there are the stories about hedge funds turning themselves into family offices. Some of these have been big, like George Soros’s legendary Quantum hedge fund becoming a family office after it dumped money from investors not connected to the family. Others, lesser-known offices but nonetheless big, have also converted to family offices, like New York-based Covepoint Capital and Brencourt Advisors. Read more of this post

Hayao Miyazaki, the anime director behind such classics as “Spirited Away” and “Ponyo,” has reportedly announced his retirement. Was the great Japanese animator greater than Walt Disney?

September 2, 2013, 12:18 PM

Hayao Miyazaki Retires: Was He Better Than Walt Disney?

By CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY

2001 – Studio Ghibli “Spirited Away.”

Reports that Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki is retiring has sent anime fans into mourning. But it should also send them to their DVD collections and to iTunes to watch his work and celebrate his genius. The news about the famed filmmaker’s retirement was announced yesterday at theVenice Film Festival, where the director’s latest movie,  “The Wind Rises,” received its international premiere, Variety reported. Miyazaki reportedly will give a press conference later this week. Representatives for DisneyDIS -0.41%, which distributes Miyazaki’s movies in the U.S., didn’t respond to a request for comment. Miyazaki was often likened to Walt Disney, but such comparisons sold both animators short. Read more of this post

6 Exercises to Strengthen Compassionate Leadership

6 EXERCISES TO STRENGTHEN COMPASSIONATE LEADERSHIP

WANT LOYAL, DEDICATED, AND PASSIONATE EMPLOYEES? BE A LOYAL, DEDICATED, AND PASSIONATE BOSS. HERE ARE SOME TOOLS TO DEVELOP WELL-BEING IN YOUR WORKPLACE THROUGH BETTER COMMUNICATION.

BY: ANDREW NEWBERG MD

When you use compassionate communication in your conversations, something quite surprising occurs: both your brain and the brain of the person you’re talking to begin to align themselves with each other. This special bond is a phenomenon referred to as “neural resonance,” and in this enhanced state of mutual attunement, two people can accomplish remarkable things together. Why? Because it eliminates the natural defensiveness that normally exists when people casually converse. The capacity to deeply relate to others is a key to all forms of relational success–at work and at home. If you find yourself in the position of overseeing others–be they your employees or your children–remember this: leaders who give the least amount of positive guidance to their subordinates are less successful in achieving their organizations’ goals, and the employees are unhappier with their work. Indeed, by not taking an active role in dialogue and teamwork building, they generate more interpersonal conflicts within their groups. Here are 6 steps to work on to become a more compassionate leader.  Read more of this post

How Radical Transparency Kills Stress

HOW RADICAL TRANSPARENCY KILLS STRESS

SHARING ISN’T STRESSFUL. IN FACT, IT’S JUST THE OPPOSITE. HERE’S HOW REAL TRANSPARENCY CAN BOOST TRUST, AND GIVE YOUR EMPLOYEES THE PSYCHOLOGICAL FREEDOM THEY’VE BEEN CRAVING.

BY: JANET CHOI

A Utah-based research software company, Qualtrics, practices a management approach they call “radical transparency.” Details and data regarding individual and company performance–including quarterly objectives and results as well as weekly snippets of employees’ past work and future goals–are shared throughout the company of over 300 employees. This way, the company communicates information that people need to do their jobs, which is particularly critical considering the largely invisible nature of knowledge work. “We’re hiring people to think,” Ryan Smith, CEO, explains in an interview with The Motley Fool. While the creativity and amorphous nature of knowledge work makes it difficult to control, the trick is that it, in fact, shouldn’t be controlled. Instead, if you’re hiring people to think, you should be concerned with whether you’re providing favorable conditions for them to do that thinking clearly and well. Radical transparency is actually one key to creating a positive setting in order for your brain and performance to flourish. Read more of this post

Why Transparency Is Your Biggest Untapped Competitive Advantage

WHY TRANSPARENCY IS YOUR BIGGEST UNTAPPED COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

FOR BUFFER’S LEO WIDRICH, IT’S MUCH MORE THAN A BUZZWORD. SO WHY ISN’T EVERYONE EMBRACING IT?

BY: LEO WIDRICH

“Default to transparency” is one of our deepest values at Buffer and it’s been absolutely instrumental in our growth from making nothing just two years ago to making over $1 million a year today.

EMPLOYEES SHARE DEEP PERSONAL CONVERSATIONS ABOUT HOW THEY’RE REALLY DOING AND FEELING THAT START FROM SEEING HOW THEIR TEAMMATE IS SLEEPING.

To us, transparency isn’t a buzzword–it’s a huge competitive advantage when everyone knows what everyone is working on and getting done. It seems obvious, right? But I’m constantly shocked by how many companies say they understand the importance of transparency but don’t make any steps to make their companies more transparent. Then I read a quote from Marc Effron, president of The Talent Strategy Group, that made it crystal clear to me why that happens, and it changed the way that I thought about transparency forever. Read more of this post

Caught In A Stress Spiral? Innovate Your Day With 8 Minutes Of “Ready, Set, Pause”

CAUGHT IN A STRESS SPIRAL? INNOVATE YOUR DAY WITH 8 MINUTES OF “READY, SET, PAUSE”

PEOPLE SPEND ABOUT 47% OF THEIR LIVES LOST IN THOUGHT, PONDERING THE PAST AND WORRYING ABOUT THE FUTURE. STOP THE CYCLE AND GET MORE PRODUCTIVE AND EFFICIENT BY BLOCKING OUT 8 MINUTES A DAY FOR “READY, SET, PAUSE.”

BY: AMY JO MARTIN

Stress, anxiety, and pressure are no longer fleeting feelings we flirt with while working on a stressful project or stuck in a traffic jam. They have become permanent fixtures in our lives. We have let them creep into our psyche and strangle our well-being. The American Medical Association purports that stress is the basic cause of more than 60 percent of all human illness and disease. They also state that stress is the number one proxy killer disease today. Whether we mean to or not, stress often dominates our thinking and decision-making process. Some may say pressure and stress are motivators. To a certain extent, yes, but at what overall cost? What is the cumulative effect of all this stress, and what is happening to us collectively as a result? Read more of this post

Cost Makes Chemicals WMD of Choice for Shrinking Group of Rogues

Cost Makes Chemicals WMD of Choice for Shrinking Group of Rogues

Syria, accused of launching a chemical attack against its own people last month, is one of a shrinking group of nations to retain a form of weaponry that the rest of the world abandoned over the past 20 years. Syria is one of only five countries not to have signed the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention, which bans the development, stockpiling, transfer and use of chemical arms. The others are Egypt, North Korea, South Sudan and Angola. Israel and Myanmar have signed the convention but not ratified it. Libya became a party to the convention in 2004 and Iraq in 2009. Read more of this post

Genetic Manipulation Extends Life of Mice 20%; But Translating Findings to Humans Faces Many Hurdles

Updated August 29, 2013, 5:00 p.m. ET

Genetic Manipulation Extends Life of Mice 20%

But Translating Findings to Humans Faces Many Hurdles

RON WINSLOW

By reducing the activity of one type of gene, scientists said they increased the average life span of mice by about 20%, a feat that in human terms is akin to extending life by about 15 years. Moreover, the researchers at the National Institutes of Health found that memory, cognition and some other important traits were better preserved in the mice as they aged, compared with a control group of mice that had normal levels of a protein put out by the gene. Read more of this post

London driver says skyscraper “melted” his car

London driver says skyscraper “melted” his car

2:59pm EDT

LONDON (Reuters) – A cluster of new skyscrapers transforming the London skyline are often blamed for spoiling the view. Now one has been accused of “melting” a car. A motorist said intense sunlight reflected from the “Walkie Talkie” – one of several flashy towers under construction in The City, London’s historic financial district – warped his Jaguar which he had parked across the road. Read more of this post

Taiwan’s government is seeking to ban tuition classes in English and maths for children under six years old, saying the rote-learning method widely used by cram schools adversely affects the mental and physical development of pre-schoolers

Cram schools face ban on English and maths tuition

Monday, September 2, 2013 – 06:00

Lee Seok Hwai

The Straits Times

TAIWAN – Taiwan’s government is seeking to ban tuition classes in English and maths for children under six years old, saying the rote-learning method widely used by cram schools adversely affects the mental and physical development of pre-schoolers. The Cabinet on Thursday approved an amendment to the Supplementary Education Act that could fine cram schools NT$100,000 to NT$500,000 (S$4,300 to S$21,300) for violating the ban. The amendment will have to be passed by the legislature. Read more of this post

Forget playing to your strengths, today the best marketing campaigns play to a business’s weakness.

That’s ‘flawsome!’

September 2, 2013

Claire Dunn

Forget playing to your strengths, today the best marketing campaigns play to a business’s weakness. iiNet knows the power of authentic engagement in advertising. Brands are being encouraged to flaunt rather than hide their flaws – to be “flawsome” – in a bid to appeal to consumer desire for authenticity and transparency. According to global firm TrendWatching, “flawsome” (a portmanteau of flawed and awesome) strategies walk hand-in-hand with “maturalism” (mature materialism, another Trendwatching neologism). They are both responses to the cynicism and disbelief traditional “flawless” marketing often elicits. We no longer buy ad campaigns that are too good to be true. Consumers now want honest conversations about products and appreciate brands that show some maturity, humility, and humour. Consumers now want honest conversations about products and appreciate brands that show some maturity, humility, and humour.   Read more of this post

How to transform into open firm

2013-09-01 13:36

How to transform into open firm

By Kim Min-su
For well over a century, the firm has been viewed as an efficient mechanism for organizing inputs such as capital and labor into productive activities. Firms grew large because of economies of scale and scope, and because it was often easier to organize production within the borders of the company than to use the wider marketplace.
Recently, however, this traditional view of the firm has changed with the evidence of how firms actually operate in markets. Spurred on by a raft of new technologies such as cloud computing, social media, wireless and remote mobility, the primary impulse in most markets today is toward greater openness.
In these more open business ecosystems, the borders between the firm and its stakeholders — customers, suppliers, workers, and innovators — have become much more permeable and reconfigurable. Read more of this post

Peter Agnefjäll, Ikea chief, is keen to stress he has his own style

September 1, 2013 2:16 pm

Peter Agnefjäll, Ikea chief

By Richard Milne

It would be easy to think that the Ikea manual on how to build a chief executive goes something like this: take a blond, Swedish man from the south of the country; dress him in a shirt, jumper and chinos; have him stress the importance of the retailer’s vision of “a better life for many people”; tighten with an Allen key. On meeting Peter Agnefjäll, who officially became the Swedish company’s fifth chief executive in its 70-year history yesterday, it is tempting to see him as an Identikit ofMikael Ohlsson, the man he replaced. Both are softly spoken and prefer to talk about the company’s unique culture and its interaction with customers than about profits and targets. Read more of this post