The Petty Source of Lincoln’s Greatness

This year’s celebration of the Fourth of July is amplified by the sesquicentennial of the Union victory at Gettysburg on July 3, 1863. The holiday will no doubt serve up the requisite dose of patriotic feeling, sentimentality and togetherness to convince us that we have exercised some civic virtue. But the vacation time spent with family and friends will mostly serve to remind us that we are exhausted.

Exhaustion is the national refrain. When everyone from a basketball coach to a Cabinet member retires from view, we are told how exhausted each is and discover a public echo of our own private feeling. Read more of this post

Cindy Crawford’s ‘Sleep Quotient’ Guides Move to Stocks; Accounting-Trained Saxophonist Kenny G makes his own picks and checks them daily, while relying on an investment pro to stay out of trouble

Cindy Crawford’s ‘Sleep Quotient’ Guides Move to Stocks

Supermodel Cindy Crawford likes stocks, so long as she can sleep at night.

Saxophonist Kenny G makes his own picks and checks them daily, while relying on an investment pro to stay out of trouble.

Gossip columns play up stars’ foibles, but most celebrities take a conservative approach to investing, knowing their income is unpredictable, said Todd Morgan of Bel Air Investment Advisors, who oversees $6.5 billion. About a fifth of that comes from people in the entertainment industry. Read more of this post

Successful Change: The Challenge for Leaders

Successful Change: The Challenge for Leaders

Published : July 01, 2013 in Knowledge@Wharton

Studies put the failure rate of organizational change at 70% or higher. Yet, managers face increasing pressure to implement change to meet short- and long-term goals. Gregory P. Shea and Cassie A. Solomon share their approach to dealing with this challenge in Leading Successful Change: 8 Keys to Making Change Work. Jeff Klein, director of the Wharton Graduate Leadership Program, recently spoke with the authors about why we are not as good at change as we need to be, and how we can get better at it. An edited transcript of the conversation follows.

Jeff Klein: We are here today with Greg Shea and Cassie Solomon to discuss their new book, Leading Successful Change. Greg and Cassie, thanks for being with us today. You start off with a paradox. You say, “We live in a world of permanent change. Our main jobs are change.” Yet, most organizational efforts to succeed with change fail. Can you talk about that? Read more of this post

‘Global Brand Power’: Barbara Kahn on How Branding Has Changed

‘Global Brand Power’: Barbara Kahn on How Branding Has Changed

Published : July 01, 2013 in Knowledge@Wharton

According to Barbara Kahn, director of the Jay H. Baker Retailing Center at Wharton, the increasing popularity of social media has two implications for marketers: First, customers now control the message and second, companies must make sure that key elements of their brand can translate throughout the world. In a recent interview with Wharton MBA candidate Alexandra Idol, Kahn discusses her new book, Global Brand Power: Leveraging Branding for Long-Term Growth, the brand “as a mechanism for growth” and how companies can become more customer focused. An edited transcript of the conversation follows.

Alexandra Idol: I’m here today to speak with Wharton marketing professor Barbara Kahn, regarding her new book Global Brand Power. I’m curious as to what inspired you to write a book about global brand power?

Barbara Kahn: Although there are plenty of books on branding out there, I think that there are a few advantages this one [offers]. First of all, it’s short, which I think is a big advantage for busy business people. But second of all, things have changed, in that it is much more important to understand the global implications of your brand. Many people today started with a brand that was in their local market or for a particular product and didn’t consider the implications of the global marketplace. Also, in this world of social media and the Internet, what it means to be a brand is different because of those different mediums and types of communication. Read more of this post

How Emotions Make the Sale

How Emotions Make the Sale

Posted on June 21, 2013

How do you sell perfume without giving the customer a whiff?

How do you sell high-end athletic wear capable of withstanding the toughest outdoor conditions to people who are not likely to do anything more dangerous than hop a subway?

And what about the magic of dolls for little girls these days? Are sales dead in a world driven by digital gaming and other cyber adventures?

Four retailers who spoke at a conference in May at Wharton’s Jay H. Baker Retailing Center came up with same answer: Connect with the consumer on an emotional level, and the sales will follow. Read more of this post

A Quantum of Solace: Timeless Questions About the Universe

July 1, 2013

A Quantum of Solace

By DENNIS OVERBYE

Niels Bohr, the Danish physicist and philosopher-king of quantum theory, once said that great truth is a statement whose opposite is also a great truth. This pretty much captured the spirit of those elusive rules that govern the subatomic world, where light can be a wave — no, a particle — well, actually, whatever you need it to be for your particular experiment.

It also seems to me to sum up much of the history of science and philosophy, in which the learned consensus keeps swinging between the yin-and-yang theories of existence: free will and fate, change and eternity, atomicity and continuity. Read more of this post

When Italians Chat, Hands and Fingers Do the Talking

June 30, 2013

When Italians Chat, Hands and Fingers Do the Talking

By RACHEL DONADIO

http://nyti.ms/159rRRb

ROME — In the great open-air theater that is Rome, the characters talk with their hands as much as their mouths. While talking animatedly on their cellphones or smoking cigarettes or even while downshifting their tiny cars through rush-hour traffic, they gesticulate with enviably elegant coordination.

From the classic fingers pinched against the thumb that can mean “Whaddya want from me?” or “I wasn’t born yesterday” to a hand circled slowly, indicating “Whatever” or “That’ll be the day,” there is an eloquence to the Italian hand gesture. In a culture that prizes oratory, nothing deflates airy rhetoric more swiftly. Read more of this post

Hitler’s food taster feared death with every morsel

Hitler’s food taster feared death with every morsel

Mon, Jul 1 2013

By Michelle Martin

BERLIN (Reuters) – Margot Woelk spent the last few years of World War Two eating lavish meals and fearing that every mouthful could mean death.

The former food taster for Adolf Hitler was served a plate of food and forced to eat it between 11 and 12 every morning for most of the last 2-1/2 years of the Nazi German leader’s life. Read more of this post

John Mackey, the ‘father’ of the natural food retailer Whole Foods Market explains why he is a visionary pragmatist

une 30, 2013 1:08 pm

John Mackey, Whole Foods Market

By Andrew Hill

Consciousness-raising: John Mackey believes Whole Foods Market proves business can help solve global problems

John Mackey blames Jean-Paul Sartre. As a philosophy student at the University of Texas in the 1970s, the co-founder of Whole Foods Market was obliged to read the French sage’s existentialist work Being and Nothingness: “It’s this massive tome, this great work and it is boring, boring, boring … One night I just threw the book down and said I’m never going to read another book in my life I don’t want to read.”

He decided he would not take another class he did not want to take (he signed up for 120 hours of elective courses instead, finishing with no degree) and ultimately concluded: “I’m not going to ever do anything in my life again … that isn’t speaking to my own sense of purpose.” Read more of this post

This weekend celebrates Jakarta’s 486th anniversary: Fatahillah, a Javanese general, conquered the port of Sunda Kelapa, driving out the Portuguese and naming the area Jayakarta, meaning “great victory.”

Ondel-Ondel Take to the Streets for Jakarta’s Anniversary

By Lenny Tristia Tambun on 11:10 am June 29, 2013.

Workers decorate the car ornament for carnival at Monas park on June 26, 2013. The creations are designed to enliven Jakarta’s anniversary ‘Jakarnaval’ celebrations, scheduled for June 30.

This weekend’s Jakarnaval, part of celebrations for Jakarta’s 486th anniversary, will feature around 1,500 participants presenting colorful artistic and cultural creations. Read more of this post

The Fascinating Rise Of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups

The Fascinating Rise Of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups

EMILY UPTON, TODAY I FOUND OUT JUN. 30, 2013, 11:13 AM 2,222

A popular chocolate cup filled with delicious peanut butter, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups were created by a man named Harry Burnett (H.B.) Reese.

Reese was born May 24, 1879 in Pennsylvania to a farming family. He married in 1900 and went on to have sixteen children. (Yes, 16!) By 1903, not surprisingly, he was struggling to support his growing family, so took on all manner of jobs from butcher to factory worker.

In 1917, Reese found an advertisement to work on a dairy farm owned by Milton S. Hershey, owner of the Hershey Chocolate Company, in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Read more of this post

4 Must-Read Books on Storytelling

4 Must-Read Books on Storytelling

by SHANE PARRISH

Stories are the way in which we teach moral lessons, keep an audience engaged in what we’re saying, and convince others to pursue a course of action. In the business world, where time is short, and you need to make a point quickly the favorite device is the anecdote. These short stories help others see your point of view. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been in a meeting where all of the evidence is pointing towards a clear path when someone, usually someone in a senior position, offers up and anecdotal counter-example. You want to quit smoking? Why? My grandfather smoked a pack a day and he lived till 92. And that’s all it takes. The meeting is over. All the evidence in the world doesn’t matter anymore. This simple anecdote now has everyone ignoring the evidence and statistical distribution and focusing on the grandfather. The problem is stories don’t really encourage us to think. They make it easy to overlook evidence, fall prey to cognitive biases, and generally encourage bad decisions. Stories are an important weapon to have in our arsenal. As someone trying to persuade others, you can have all the facts you want but if you can’t tell a story people won’t listen. In response to a question recently, Demian Farnworth, a writer at copyblogger, offered up four books copywriters should read to improve their ability to tell a good story. He spends his day writing stories and highly recommends you read these four books if you want to learn how to tell better stories.

The First Five Pages: A Writer’s Guide To Staying Out of the Rejection Pile, by Noah Lukeman.

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, by Chip and Dan Heath.

How to Write a Damn Good Novel: A Step-by-Step No Nonsense Guide to Dramatic Storytelling, by James N. Frey.

Writing the Breakout Novel, by Donald Maas.

“As you’ll notice,” he writes, “these have nothing to do with copywriting. That’s okay. The discipline of storytelling translates exceptionally well over industries. What you learn in these books you can use in your sales copy.” And sales copy is just a fancy way of persuading people to come around to your point of view. Just make sure you’ve done the work.

Life is Too Short to Work with Assholes; Non assholes care. They want people around them to succeed. They are obsessed with the joy customers experience with their work. But above all else, when they finally trust you, they will make themselves vulnerable to you. Something assholes will never do

JUNE 25, 2013

Life is Too Short to Work with Assholes

MARC BARROS, Entrepreneur. Creator. Builder. Co-Founded Contour Cameras.

Just thinking about the last one you worked with makes your stomach turn. The negative energy you felt in their presence is enough to make you want to throw up and remembering the damage they caused is something you shove so far back into your subconscious, you just hope it goes away. Unfortunately there are assholes all around you. Enough of them that they find their way into companies, marriages, families, and friendships. A trait everyone can recognize that often goes unchecked for a long time until someone is willing to stand up and say enough, no more assholes. Dealing with them in the start-up world sucks. They can tear a team apart and if they happen to invest, an entire company. Their quest for power is a zero sum game where their winning means someone else is losing. A game that works in the short term, but never in the long term. Asshole is a subject so popular there are 154 million results on Google and in the business world interesting enough that Robert Sutton’s book, “The No Asshole Rule” became a best seller, everywhere. Read more of this post

Senior Vatican cleric arrested in money smuggling case; Trio accused of trying to bring 20 million euros from Switzerland

Senior Vatican cleric arrested in money smuggling case

Fri, Jun 28 2013

* Trio accused of trying to bring 20 million euros from Switzerland

* Vatican prelate was already subject of another investigation

* Arrests come after Pope set up commission to look into bank

* Private plane was to have collected cash; cell phones burned (Adds more quotes, Scarano’s background)

By Philip Pullella

ROME, June 28 (Reuters) – A senior Catholic cleric with connections to the Vatican bank was arrested on Friday for plotting to help rich friends smuggle tens of millions of euros in cash into Italy from Switzerland, in the latest blow to the Vatican’s image. Read more of this post

Bob Mankoff picks his 11 favorite New Yorker cartoons ever

Reframe failure as intention; Better Place and Tesla prove there’s an art out to turning sub-optimal outcomes into success

Reframe failure as intention

June 28, 2013: 11:21 AM ET

Better Place and Tesla prove there’s an art out to turning sub-optimal outcomes into success.

By Saul Kaplan

FORTUNE — The key to unlocking the next wave of economic growth may be as simple as enabling more people to try more stuff. The industrial era was all about scale and squeezing out the possibility of mistakes. As a result we are too afraid to fail. Companies only take on projects with highly predictable results. Employees fall in line for fear of making career-limiting moves. How will we get better if the fear of failure prevents us from trying anything new? How will we make progress on the big system challenges of our time, if every time someone tries something transformational and fails, we vilify them? What if we reframed failure as intentional iteration? Read more of this post

The Last Trace of a Great Newspaper; James Gordon Bennett Sr. founded the New York Herald in 1835 and made it the first modern newspaper. The New York Times’ renaming the International Herald Tribune in the fall marks the disappearance of the name of the New York Herald from American journalism after 178 years.

SATURDAY, JUNE 29, 2013

The Last Trace of a Great Newspaper

By JOHN STEELE GORDON | MORE ARTICLES BY AUTHOR

James Gordon Bennett Sr. founded the New York Herald in 1835 and made it the first modern newspaper. The New York Times’ renaming the International Herald Tribune in the fall marks the disappearance of the name of the New York Herald from American journalism after 178 years.

James Gordon Bennett Sr. founded the New York Herald in 1835 and made it the first modern newspaper.

Since 2003, the New York Times has been the sole owner of the International Herald Tribune, which was founded in 1887 by James Gordon Bennett Jr., with headquarters in Paris. The Times has announced that it will be renaming the paper as the International New York Times this fall.

While that will mean the loss of a masthead familiar to Americans traveling abroad for more than four generations, it also means the final disappearance of the name of the New York Herald from American journalism after 178 years. That is a pity, for the New York Herald was the greatest newspaper of its day and has a claim to have been the greatest newspaper ever. Its founder, James Gordon Bennett Sr., created modern journalism. Read more of this post

Tupperware Brands has a storied past in America. But its future is overseas. CEO Rick Goings sees himself as a global ambassador of capitalism

SATURDAY, JUNE 29, 2013

The New Party Line

By ROBIN GOLDWYN BLUMENTHAL | MORE ARTICLES BY AUTHOR

Tupperware Brands has a storied past in America. But its future is overseas. CEO Rick Goings sees himself as a global ambassador of capitalism.

The technology sector may have some of the most vocal (and controversial) women in business today, but a truer bastion of female empowerment in the workforce is much more old school—and led by a man. Tupperware pioneered the direct-marketing strategy in 1948 that allowed women in the post-World War II U.S. to maintain some of the financial independence to which they had grown accustomed. Current CEO Rick Goings has spent the past two decades steering the company—and its opportunities for women—overseas, creating a robust business and a multi-unit company, Tupperware Brands (ticker: TUP), with a $4.2 billion market value.

Read more of this post

Infographic: The Literal Meaning Of Every State Name In The U.S.

Infographic: The Literal Meaning Of Every State Name In The U.S.

WASHINGTON TRANSLATES TO “MARSH FARM LAND, MISSOURI TO “LAND OF THE PEOPLE WITH DUGOUT CANOES.” WHAT DOES YOUR STATE OR CITY NAME MEAN? YOU MAY NOT WANT TO KNOW.

The New Navel of the Moon. It’s so poetic, isn’t it? (And sure, maybe a bit anatomically confusing.) That’s the real meaning behind the state name New Mexico, and it’s one of many etymological gems uncovered by cartographers Stephan Hormes and Silke Peust while they were creating this U.S. map depicting the original, literal meanings behind the states and cities we know today. “The inspiration was my interest in etymology and my profession as a cartographer,” Hormes tells Co.Design. “I started to exchange real names for rue names and the world became a strange romantic continent. It’s obvious to me that after five years of changing names on maps, I must do it. No map is safe.” Of course, most state names aren’t nearly as gorgeous as New Mexico’s moon navel. For every Idaho “Light on the Mountains,” there is a Missouri “Land of the People with Dugout Canoes.” Many states, of course, simply describe geography, which works out well for Mississippi “Land of the Great River” but a bit less elegantly for Washington “Marsh Farm Land.” I ask Hormes if there was a single discovery that was most shocking. “I found some funny stuff like ‘Astrakhan’ in the Wolga delta which means ‘Tax haven for pilgrims,’” he explains. “Once we made a funny map of peculiar place names in German. Place names like ‘Fucking’ or ‘Cats Brain’ changed even my selective perception.” At the U.S. city level, it’s fascinating to see just how many names have gone unchanged. Green Bay. Cedar Rapids. Oakland. Little Rock. They’re all modern names that, when you take a second look, have an old-world appeal. I just wish I could say the same for my hometown of Chicago, which didn’t age so gracefully. It translates to “stink onions.”

America’s lost revolutionary; The question of what – or who – is left out of historical accounts is often as interesting as what is included; “conservatives” elite were determined to protect their privileges against others

June 28, 2013 7:27 pm

America’s lost revolutionary

By Gillian Tett

The question of what – or who – is left out of historical accounts is often as interesting as what is included

Afew years ago David Lefer, a high school and college history teacher in Brooklyn, was asked by a student for a good book on John Dickinson, an 18th-century American Revolutionary political figure who hailed from Philadelphia.

Lefer duly scoured the libraries and discovered a striking fact: although America’s academic world is brimming with accounts of the Founding Fathers, there was almost nothing at all written on Dickinson. That struck Lefer as odd. Dickinson was important in that 18th-century independence movement, since he (in)famously penned the tracts known as Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, which eloquently defended the idea of liberty and freedom. Read more of this post