Letters Remain

Tag: business

  • Anatomy of a Price War

    With the recent Amazonā€“Walmart price war on books and the 1992 airline industry price war as the backdrop, James Surowiecki takes a look at how price wars start, how they can be avoided, and how to (possibly) win at them. The best way to win a price war, then, is not to play in the…

  • Cultural Differences in Career Change Perceptions

    We all have career transitions throughout our livesā€”some by choice, some not. By interviewing workers from Austria, Serbia, Spain, China and the U.S., researchers have determined someĀ cultural differences in how people perceive career transitions, and why they occur. Workers in the United States didn’t ever attribute a career transition to an external cause, such as…

  • Sugar Ray Robinson and Self-Reliance

    In Intelligent Life‘s review of Sweet Thunder, a Sugar Ray Robinson biography, they discuss Sugar Ray’s entrepreneurial spirit and tenacity in keeping control over his own business and brand. Robinson was savvy. He was the first black athlete to own most of the rights to his fights and to negotiate broadcasting deals on radio and…

  • Anti-Patterns

    I’ve written about design patterns a couple of times in the past, but today I discovered anti-patterns: design patterns that “may be commonly used but [are] ineffective and/or counterproductive in practice”. One of the “key elements present to formally distinguish an actual anti-pattern from a simple bad habit, bad practice, or bad idea”: Some repeated…

  • On Meetings

    Contemplating how to lead without meetings , The Washington Post asks three equally qualified people for their views on them. Daisy Wademan Dowling, executive director of leadership development at an unnamed Fortune 500 company, responded with the following: The real reason leaders end up in too many meetings? Because it’s flattering: having your presence “required”…

  • Innovation of Innovation

    The costs of innovation have exceeded the benefits, says Umair Haque, and it’s time to move away from this “relic of the industrial era” towards something specifically “built for the 21st century”.Ā Haque has dubbed this the almost too hip Awesomeness Manifesto. The three problems with innovation as it stands, according to Haque: Innovation relies on…

  • Online Dating and OkCupid

    OkCupid, one of the biggest online dating websites around, has had a bit of an up and down history. Originally called SparkMatch, itself a by-product of the once popular TheSpark, the site was one of the first completely free dating websites that now abound online. Inc. Magazine looks at the history of OkCupidā€”it’s struggles and…

  • Scheduling and Non-Hierarchical Management

    These two essays have been doing the rounds of late, and for good reason: Paul Graham’s comparison between the schedules of Managers and the schedules of Makers (creatives). The gist? A manager’s day is divided into hour-long blocks of time, makers work in much longer, relatively unconstrained and non-discrete units of time. The problem is…

  • On Good and Bad Managers

    Charisma, confidence and being vocal are key to being perceived as a leader, Time suggests after summarising some research on what makes people persuasive leaders. Social psychologists know that one way to be viewed as a leader in any group is simply to act like one. Speak up, speak well and offer lots of ideas,…

  • Deconstructing Managers

    Today and tomorrow I’ll be posting a few links I’ve saved on managing: on being a manager, dealing with managers, and how to be a better one. To begin, a six-part series from Rands in Reposeā€”Deconstructing Managers. There Is Evil, Your Manager’s Job I trust that, like me, you’re an optimist and you believe that…