Bamboo Innovator

Story Power: Why Businesses Can’t Tell Them Right

Story Power: Why Businesses Can’t Tell Them Right

by Rich Karlgaard | Nov 15, 2013

It is a mystery why businesses don’t follow this eternally appealing plotline

The year’s surprise megahit movie is Gravity, starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. Warning: I’m about to spoil the plot. Stop reading if you want to see the movie with fresh eyes. While orbiting Earth in a space shuttle, Bullock and Clooney survive a collision with debris. Clooney, the veteran astronaut, and Bullock, a medical doctor and space rookie, now must find a way to get back to Earth. Read more of this post

Finns Pitch Frightful Weather as a Competitive Advantage

NOVEMBER 15, 2013, 9:02 AM

Finns Pitch Frightful Weather as a Competitive Advantage

By MARK SCOTT

Ilkka Paananen, founder and chief executive of Supercell, a Finnish company that last month had a 51 percent stake bought by SoftBank, a Japanese telecommunications giant, for $1.5 billion.

HELSINKI – In Europe’s crowded technology scene, cities are eager to differentiate themselves from local rivals. London has its connections with global finance. Berlin has a thriving local arts and music community. And Helsinki has its wintry weather. Read more of this post

Finding Strength in Humility

NOVEMBER 15, 2013, 2:05 PM

Finding Strength in Humility

By TONY SCHWARTZ

Humility doesn’t get much respect in the corporate world. How often do you hear a leader say publicly, “I’m sorry, I got that wrong,” or, “I didn’t do that very well,” or even something as simple as, “I don’t know.” Now think about a time – if you can remember one – in which your boss apologized for something, accepted responsibility for a misstep or admitted to simply not having an answer to a significant question. Did it make you respect that person less, or more? Read more of this post

The Cautionary Tale of an Investment Adviser Gone Astray; Mark Spangler, an investment adviser, preached the doctrine of acting in his clients’ best interest. But his actions put the lie to his beliefs

November 15, 2013

The Cautionary Tale of an Investment Adviser Gone Astray

By PAUL SULLIVAN

IN the world of Ponzi schemes, Mark Spangler was a small-time crook. But his early career, as a respected investment adviser in Seattle and onetime head of a national adviser organization that pushes its members to act in their clients’ best interest, gives his recent conviction on 32 criminal counts a twist. At its height, the Spangler Group — which consisted of him and later his wife — supposedly managed $106 million. It collapsed in 2011 for the reason that all Ponzi schemes collapse — clients wanted their money back and he didn’t have it. But it had been coming undone for years, ever since Mr. Spangler, 58, started to fashion himself a venture capitalist, a role he was ill suited to. Read more of this post

Why Billionaire Home Depot Founder Ken Langone Took A Secretary’s Salary At His First Wall Street Job

Why Billionaire Home Depot Founder Ken Langone Took A Secretary’s Salary At His First Wall Street Job

LINETTE LOPEZ AND SARANYA KAPUR NOV. 15, 2013, 12:16 PM 4,394 5

Some of the most successful people on Wall Street, have gotten where they are in ways you might not expect. Take the case of Home Depot founder, billionaire Ken Langone. In an interview with finance career site OneWire, he explains the winding road he took to finance, and it’s no standard story. His grades in college weren’t conventional: Read more of this post

The Risky Mentality That Made Jeff Bezos So Successful

The Risky Mentality That Made Jeff Bezos So Successful

JANET CHOI, IDONETHIS BLOG NOV. 15, 2013, 4:24 PM 2,587 2

Success often feels like a chase, especially in the startup world. You scrabble to gain ground, obsessing over features and metrics and competitors, and though you think you’re moving fast and hard, sometimes it feels like you’re running up a down escalator.

For Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, success isn’t a pursuit or a race to the top. It’s an adventure.

You don’t just buy The Washington Post when you think you’re in a race. Rather, his key to success is maintaining a mindset of exploration rather than conquest. Bezos told Charlie Rose in 2012: Read more of this post

A ‘Busy Day’ For This Corporate Lawyer Is Utterly Depressing

A ‘Busy Day’ For This Corporate Lawyer Is Utterly Depressing

ERIN FUCHS NOV. 15, 2013, 4:47 PM 2,629 6

We recently ran a depressing anonymous Quora post detailing typical days of a corporate law associate and how utterly pointless that work can seem. At best, on not-busy days, he spends 11.25 hours alone in his office proofreading and marking documents without any human interaction, except for the brief exchanges with workers in the coffee shop, the cafeteria, and document services. At worst, on busy days, the drudgery is never-ending. Read more of this post

Why Some Companies Are Ending Employee Performance Ratings

Why Some Companies Are Ending Employee Performance Ratings

MAX NISEN NOV. 15, 2013, 5:06 PM 1,871

Even though some major companies like Microsoft have decided to eliminate their stack ranking systems, the controversial employee review process will never go away entirely. Industries like defense and aerospace, for example, tend to value execution over creativity, so need a way to measure and compare employees. Ranking workers on a bell curve that features a set number of high, average, and poor performers meets that need.  Read more of this post

My Dad Will Never Come Home Because He Sold Drugs To Pay For My Brother’s Bone Marrow Transplant; Most pains dull with time. Unfortunately, having a loved one incarcerated is not one of those pains

My Dad Will Never Come Home Because He Sold Drugs To Pay For My Brother’s Bone Marrow Transplant

APRIL ANDERSON, ACLU NOV. 15, 2013, 12:24 PM 12,062

April Anderson with her father and family

Dad usually suggests we leave a little early because leaving is the “elephant in the room” that we’re all trying to avoid. “Ya’ll go on and head home and get some rest. Don’t worry about me, I’m fine.” It’s the same stuff every time. My dad is one of 3,278 people who will never come home. He’s one of the thousands who have been sentenced to prison until they die for nonviolent drug or property crimes. Read more of this post

Michael Bloomberg Shared The Reason Why He’s Rich On The Radio This Morning; “You have to like what you see in the mirror and you shouldn’t worry about what other people say”

Michael Bloomberg Shared The Reason Why He’s Rich On The Radio This Morning

LINETTE LOPEZ NOV. 15, 2013, 1:16 PM 7,337 11

For almost a decade Michael Bloomberg has gotten on the radio every Friday morning with John Gambling and told New Yorkers exactly whatever is on his mind, Politicker reports. No really, if you’ve ever listened, Hizzoner’s style is super blunt to the point of making some people uncomfortable. But he’s fine with it. In fact, he told Gambling this morning in one of both their final shows — Gambling is retiring and saying goodbye along with the Mayor — that being blunt is the reason why he’s so rich. Read more of this post

A Scientist Wants To Issue A Bond That Pays Big Once We Find Alien Life

A Scientist Wants To Issue A Bond That Pays Big Once We Find Alien Life

SARANYA KAPUR NOV. 16, 2013, 7:10 AM 462

In modern finance, you can hedge against anything. But the market for hedging against alien invasions is pretty thin. Marginal Revolution’s Tyler Cowen pointed us to an interesting proposal addressing the matter. In an article for the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, Jacob Haqq-Misra of the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science proposes a novel way to insure against the coming close encounter, while also helping fund the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.  Read more of this post

Why Clever And Lazy Leaders Are More Efficient

Why Clever And Lazy Leaders Are More Efficient

BELLE BETH COOPER, BUFFER NOV. 15, 2013, 9:47 PM 2,563 2

I don’t like to think of myself as lazy, but when I came across the ideas that inspired this post that suggested being lazy and clever could make you an excellent leader, I was a little less inclined to shrug off the label. This theory revolves around very broad, general behaviors, rather than labelling specific people, but it seems like an interesting way to classify what we’re good at and what kind of roles we fit into. Read more of this post

This Simple Icebreaker Will Improve Your Company’s Culture: Draw three cards from a deck which feature images and words like “love,” “forgiveness,” and “anger” and say what the words on those cards mean to you

This Simple Icebreaker Will Improve Your Company’s Culture

ALISON GRISWOLD NOV. 15, 2013, 3:55 PM 3,055 3

Amy Errett, the CEO of in-home hair color provider Madison Reed, says her company has a cocktail hour every Thursday. At the cocktail hour, the team regularly plays an ice-breaking game, Errett tells the New York Times. They take a deck of cards, place the cards — which feature images and words like “love,” “forgiveness,” and “anger” — face down on the table, and ask everyone to draw three cards. “Then we’ll go in a circle, and say what the words on those cards mean to you,” Errett explains. “And if it doesn’t work for you, just pass. That’s cool.” The exercise might sound simple, but Errett refers to it as “the biggest breakthrough thing we’ve done in terms of culture.” She says that people were initially hesitant to respond to their card and would ask to pick a different one, but now everyone participates. It’s a simple routine that any company could try as a way of building stronger teams and company culture. “I’ve had so many people come up and say, ‘Thank you,'” Errett says. 

Man Builds A Bomb With Materials Anyone Can Buy Inside An Airport Terminal: Coffee mug, battery, some water, and body spray and condom

Man Builds A Bomb With Materials Anyone Can Buy Inside An Airport Terminal

PAUL SZOLDRA NOV. 15, 2013, 8:51 PM 8,274 6

A potential hijacker doesn’t need to try sneaking a gun or knife on board an airplane, since an independent security researcher has just built a bomb using nothing but things that can be picked up at terminal gift shops. Evan Booth — who runs the website Terminal Cornucopia — built an improvised fragmentation grenade from little more than a coffee mug, battery, some water, and body spray that can be purchased after a TSA security check. Read more of this post

Why You Shouldn’t Copy The Habits Of Successful People

Why You Shouldn’t Copy The Habits Of Successful People

OLIVER EMBERTON, OLIVEREMBERTON.COM
NOV. 16, 2013, 6:22 AM 764 1

The problem with looking at the successful for inspiration is what they do now isn’t what got them there. You’re liable to copy the wrong things. Here are three commonly copied qualities of the prosperous, and why they’re so dangerous:

Scheduling: The cost of being in demand

A successful person usually adopts an insanely heavy schedule. It’s not hard to imagine Beyoncé, say, having 90% of her life booked up for months in advance. This is not a good thing. In reality people usually find such pressures debilitating; they have the perverse effect of compromising the very thing that made that person great in the first place, like the time to study and make music. Scheduling is actually what you want to avoid; the freedom to do what you want is one of the greatest assets a person can have in becoming successful. Long blocks of uninterrupted time are what allows you to develop your music / book / health / business in the first place. Don’t be in any hurry to regiment all your time. Read more of this post

Family retailer runs out of cash and luck; Founded with a single retail barrow in the Gateshead MetroCentre, Collectables grew for 27 years, surviving recessions.

November 14, 2013 7:29 pm

Family retailer runs out of cash and luck

By Chris Tighe

The run-up to Christmas should have been a prime time for Collectables to sell its ranges of gifts, cookware, handbags and jewellery. Instead the northeast retail chain’s 14 units are closed, its 200 employees redundant and the business in administration. Founded with a single retail barrow in the Gateshead MetroCentre, Collectables grew for 27 years, surviving recessions. But the retailer’s luck ran out in late September when it could not raise the money needed to gear up for Christmas. Its failure highlights concern that some fragile companies could finally succumb just as the economy starts to recover. Read more of this post

No one knows a thing about social mobility; So will my children have a better or a worse life than me?

November 15, 2013 6:27 pm

No one knows a thing about social mobility

By John McDermott

So will my children have a better or a worse life than me? “Sir John Major, the former Conservative prime minister, said he found it ‘truly shocking’ that ‘in every single sphere of British influence, the upper echelons of power in 2013 are held overwhelmingly by the privately educated or the affluent middle class.’”

Financial Times , November 11

Hear, hear.

So you agree with the Senior Adviser to Credit Suisse, Chairman of the International Advisory Board of the National Bank of Kuwait, and former Carlyle Group executive about the role of the affluent middle class? Read more of this post

Call to reinstate Istanbul icon as mosque

November 15, 2013 5:55 pm

Call to reinstate Istanbul icon as mosque

By Daniel Dombey in Istanbul

One of Turkey’s most senior ministers has called for Istanbul’s ancient Ayasofya museum to be converted back to being a mosque, amid an intense debate about the social and religious agenda of the country’s Islamist-rooted government. Read more of this post

Lunch with the FT: Henry Blodget; A decade after being banned from Wall Street, the business website chief on redemption, regrets and market madness

November 15, 2013 12:42 pm

Lunch with the FT: Henry Blodget

By Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson

A decade after being banned from Wall Street, the business website chief on redemption, regrets and market madness

According to family legend, Henry Blodget’s great-grandfather was on the trans-Siberian railway when he lost his fortune in the Wall Street crash of 1929. He died not long after, during the Great Depression, his Fifth Avenue apartment valued at zero because the entire building had been declared bankrupt. Today, Blodget estimates, the prime Manhattan property would be worth $20m. Read more of this post

The evolving role of the Oxford English Dictionary

November 15, 2013 6:11 pm

The evolving role of the Oxford English Dictionary

By Lorien Kite

Look for a topical expression in the Oxford English Dictionary and you may find it is older than you think. “Phone-hacking”, for example, was first used in the early 1980s. Americans have been worrying about “fiscal cliffs” of one kind or another for more than 50 years. And the desire for an “Arab spring” goes back to at least 1975 – or longer in the case of cyclists, for whom the term was coined in the late 19th century to denote a component in the suspension of saddles. Read more of this post

Taking on middle class privilege poses tough choices for politicians; The social mobility issue has struck a nerve in Westminster

November 15, 2013 7:09 pm

Taking on middle class privilege poses tough choices for politicians

By Sarah Neville, Public Policy Editor

The social mobility issue has struck a nerve in Westminster

When Sir John Major this week railed against the domination of power by a privately educated elite, he was simultaneously delivering a political critique and articulating a deeply felt human desire for economic progress. From a “chicken in every pot” to “homes fit for heroes”, for decades politicians have found different ways of making the same promise to a hopeful electorate: vote for us and you will live a happier, richer life than your parents – and your children will do even better. Read more of this post

Class barriers keep poor out of professional careers

November 15, 2013 8:10 pm

Class barriers keep poor out of professional careers

By Elizabeth Rigby, Deputy Political Editor

The poorest Britons have no better chance of becoming a doctor, lawyer or accountant than they did almost 20 years ago, according to social mobility indicators seen by the Financial Times. The revelations, contained in a set of 17 trackers drawn up by Nick Clegg’s office to measure the coalition’s progress on improving life chances for disadvantaged people, also show that the most deprived children are still significantly behind their more privileged peers on the day they start school. The findings will add weight to growing public and political anxiety about the lack of social mobility in the UK. Read more of this post

Studies Reveal a Google-Like, Crowd-Sourcing Brain; the new combination of neuroscience and computer science tells us what programs the mind runs

The Brain’s Crowdsourcing Software

Nov. 15, 2013 7:51 p.m. ET

Over the past decade, popular science has been suffering from neuromania. The enthusiasm came from studies showing that particular areas of the brain “light up” when you have certain thoughts and experiences. It’s mystifying why so many people thought this explained the mind. What have you learned when you say that someone’s visual areas light up when they see things? Read more of this post

How Goldilocks Moved to Space and the World of Economists

How Goldilocks Moved to Space and the World of Economists

The story is ‘just right’ for astronomers judging the habitability of other planets.

BEN ZIMMER

Nov. 15, 2013 7:29 p.m. ET

When astronomers announced earlier this month that there could be billions of Earthlike planets in the Milky Way, a fairy-tale character made a familiar return to the headlines: Goldilocks. For planets to support life as Earth does, they must be not too big and not too small, not too hot and not too cold. In other words, they must be “just right,” like the porridge, chair and bed Goldilocks finds in the Three Bears’ house. Read more of this post

The Bad Idea of Daylight-Saving Time; The faceless system that determines our taxes also decides how much daylight we are allowed and when we may enjoy it

The Bad Idea of Daylight-Saving Time

The faceless system that determines our taxes also decides how much daylight we are allowed and when we may enjoy it.

AMANDA FOREMAN

Nov. 15, 2013 9:37 p.m. ET

Every November, a great theft is perpetrated against hundreds of millions of innocent people. They are robbed of an hour of afternoon sunlight by the government decree known as daylight-saving time. The misappropriation occurs precisely at the wrong moment, when the days are already growing shorter. Read more of this post

What Floats Your Boat Might Not Float Your Fund

Nov 15, 2013

What Floats Your Boat Might Not Float Your Fund

JASON ZWEIG

The question isn’t whether interest rates will rise, but when. As Janet Yellen, the nominee to succeed Ben Bernanke as head of the Federal Reserve, made clear to lawmakers Thursday, the Fed won’t keep rates low forever. Some investors already are trying to protect themselves by pouring money into “bank loan” funds, or portfolios that hold short-term loans extended by banks to companies.

Read more of this post

Some statisticians are out to prove to nonmathematicians how useful—and ubiquitous—their field is

Odds Lot: Statisticians Party Like It’s 2.013 x 10 Cubed

About 88% Through Celebratory Year, 100% in Field Find It ‘Sexy’

DANIEL MICHAELS

Nov. 15, 2013 10:32 p.m. ET

LOUVAIN-LA-NEUVE, Belgium—When Ingrid van Keilegom tells people she is a statistician, they usually reply fearfully, ” ‘Oh, no,’ ” she says. “To them, it sounds like math.” Prof. van Keilegom and her colleagues at the Catholic University here, about 19 miles from Brussels, are out to change that impression. To demonstrate how useful—and ubiquitous—their field is, they recently held an all-day conference, “Statistics, your friend in daily life, whether you like it or not.” Read more of this post