The fact is, I am regularly finding folks who've done just this, gone with the lowest bidder, and not surprisingly they got what they paid for. Mind you, I'm not saying every outsource provider out there is bad. Heck, I'm one of them parttime myself. That's the point of this whole blog. But when hiring, folks just don't do their homework on people.

I never understood why people said it was so easy to have folks separate with their money until I started freelancing as an internet consultant. The fact is, people inherently want to trust. And even today, if you give the structure or appearance of an agreement, people are willing to put cash down for work or service down who knows where on the other side of the planet.

People really need to approach outsourcing the way they would a contractor working on their house. Check references, get detailed bids, use escrow accounts, and pay by deliverable terms, not everything up front at the beginning. This is simple contracting 101. Am I offended if someone wants to see my references? My feedback? My past work? Use an escrow? Have a schedule of decision points? Not at all. In fact I suggest most of the above in my own bids so that folks can work with me knowing they have multiple phases of getting something back for their money. And I do the same with anyone I outsource work to myself.

Buyer beware! Caveat Emptor!

Being on the receiving end of the hospitality industry's publicity machines, let me tell you that there's a lot of green-washing out there. Usually I let it, well, wash over me, because I can do only so much. But for some reason, I decided to wade into this one.

From the Susan Magrino Agency in NYC:
"Good Afternoon, I wanted to make sure that you received the news about LXR Luxury Resorts & Hotels becoming the first hotel collection to offer Icelandic Glacial, a super-premium bottled water with a net-zero carbon footprint."

Um, didn't LXR hear the news that bottled water is baaaaad for the environment? I guess not, because the release states: "LXR's partnership with Icelandic Glacial is yet another example of the hotel collection's ongoing campaign to become an industry leader for ecologically-sensitive operation."

While Icelandic Glacial *may* be "greener" than some other bottled water companies, NOT using bottled water is the only environmentally sensivite option. But wait, there's more.

Iceland Glacial, which indeed ships water aaaalllllll the way from Iceland, is 20 percent owned by Anheuser-Busch, which is why you'll find this fancy wet stuff not only at luxury lodgings, but also at such swanky spots as SeaWorld (owned by Busch).

And here's a little excerpt from this Aug. 13, 2007, Business Week article by Ben Elgin. The headline is: "How 'Green' Is That Water? A close look at one company's claims of "carbon neutrality" points to problems for the industry":

"Icelandic can point to a carbon-neutral certification it obtained from a paid consulting firm, but BusinessWeek's examination of Icelandic's environmental reports reveals that the company has not zeroed out all of its emissions."

After citing specific examples, the article then goes on to say, "More broadly, the reports indicate just how difficult it would be for the bottled water industry, which has soared to $11 billion in U.S. sales, to address consumer anxiety about its role in global warming."

Like I said and like you've no doubt heard from a wellspring of sources, no matter how you pour it, bottled water is not "environmentally sensitive." If you agree, you can let LXR know by emailing feedback@luxuryresorts.com. Now, let me get back to my tall, cool glass o' tap. Ahhhhhhhh...

Oh, in case you're curious, here are LXR properties offering Icelandic Glacial bottled water: The London West Hollywood and the Carmel Valley Ranch, both in California; The Peaks Resort & Golden Door Spa in Telluride, Colo.; The Boulders Resort & Golden Door Spa in Carefree, Ariz.; South Seas Island Resort in Captiva Island, Fla.; the Inns of Sanibel in Sanibel, Fla; Naples Grande Beach Resort and Edgewater Beach Hotel, both in Naples, Fla.; Fort Lauderdale Grande Hotel & Yacht Club, Bahia Mar Beach Resort & Yachting Center and Hyatt Regency Pier Sixty-Six Resort & Spa, all in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Boca Raton Resort & Club in Florida; Buena Vista Palace Hotel & Spa in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.; Miami Beach Resort in Florida; Casa Marina Resort & Beach Club and The Reach Resort both in Key West, Fla.; Key Largo Grande, A Hilton Resort, in Florida; The Saratoga Hilton in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. and The London NYC in New York City.

Business week editor Peter Coy and Senior Blogger Ed Wallace have gone into a constructive dialog on oil prices, speculation and demand-supply. Both of them, have come up with arguments on both sides of the topic starting with facts on supply (if you can call them facts, given very little info coming on reserves from House of Saud and Iran) and saying that we aren't really short on oil, and its more information manipulation and hence speculation. Which is then countered by Peter and more importantly pressing the fact that speculators are an integral part of modern day markets and bring in the much needed liquidity and cushion required by real traders. This is then agreed to by Ed only to mention that speculation is not an issue but manipulation is! And given the real lack of information on oil markets, players and plays, it's more likely looks like manipulation which has all major parties in-concert.

So where does this (oil and its glory days) end? This is how I think it will:

• Overall this high-price oil will make economies and companies become more efficient and moving to other sources and hence substantial reduction in demand!  - Though China is the dark horse here... it's population and industries run on cheap funding and huge subsidies
• Arab nations becoming more transparent with oil reporting - keeps the markets more informed and hence more realistic prices  - not necessarily low!
• Middle east becoming even more hostile - thanks to US intervention, growing social unrest and realisation that Oil is ending and world is moving away from it

So overall, this scenario of a 100+ dollar is going to stay for a couple of years atleast. Followed by some drastic chopping of fortunes (esp. those IB guys from that place which has 'Gold' in its name and speculators) and by 2015 we should be either at 200% of present oil-efficiency levels and moved to sources that are much more available! And if we have not please be ready to ration your own electricity and gas cause you won't be able to afford it! :)

Click this link for the article:The Coming of the Car Bot

'

Love it or hate it, the Black Book of Outsourcing is making noise in the outsourcing business and influencing customers, many of which are in desperate need of impartial information that rates outsourcing vendors and consultants.  For vendors which receive high rankings, they can purchase the data and advertise their success to their customers and prospects. Nothing wrong with that, except this data is flawed and not qualified by expert opinion - as highlighted by BusinessWeek's Steve Hamm. 

Why is this data so flawed?

• Vendors are invited to have their own people fill out vast numbers of the survery online
• Monitoring the quality and ensuring unbias for online surveys with this methodology is almost impossible, especially when the quality control is highly dubious
• The authors are putting the wrong vendors in the wrong categories in many instances
• Many of the ranking swings from year-to-year are absurd
• The lack of any qualified expert opinion is hugely apparent as many of these rankings are plainly incorrect and a highly distorted version of reality.  Reputable research firms qualify their data with substantiated expert views, yearly customer reviews and multiple survey instruments, namely face-to-face interviews, telephone surveys and focus groups - NOT solely the online mass surveying the Black Book authors use) 
• Many vendors, not happy with the methodology, refused to partake in the survey, making the results highly skewed towards those that did participate
• Many of these rankings are based on insignificant samples

'

Why should vendors boycott promoting this data?

• Many small/mid-size vendors are spending large quantities of their scarce marketing budgets having access to this data and promoting it.  They should be investing their marketing dollars on real research / conference promotions / branding / customer events.  This is a waste of their resources
• Vendor marketeers have an ethical responsibility to promote fair, judgement-based information to their clients - why should their clients trust vendors which promote flawed information? 
• If vendors want to advertise opinion, they should encourage their own clients to give them references
• The Black Book of Outsourcing, while good in concept, is adding negative value to the outsourcing industry.  It should not be encouraged or supported until it proves it can delivery quality data and opinion that is credible

'

Please submit examples from the Black Book that you would like aired here, by clicking on the comments link below:

The article implies that Brown & Wilson's methodology is suspect in the context of other tech analysts.  According to the piece, "Brown & Wilson's approach is different from most established tech researchers. Firms such as Gartner and Forrester Research employ dozens of analysts who use detailed phone surveys of high-ranking tech purchasing executives as one of their research methods. Gartner's so-called Magic Quadrant reports typically show only gradual movement in companies' positions from year to year."

Hmm.  I'm not so sure.  As someone who has worked in tech and B2B marketing for years it's still not clear to me what methodology Gartner employs to arrive at its magic quadrants.  These things map companies on two continua: ability to execute and 'vision'.  The holy grail for a tech firm is to make it to the upper right quartile i.e. to be perceived as a visionary leader.

However the means by which companies make it onto a magic quadrant is not clear - and appears to be very subjective.  Early stage companies find it notoriously difficult - especially as access to Gartner analysts is very restricted if vendors are not actually clients of the firm's.  I have faced situations in the past where analysts are made available for a briefing but business development reps have sat-in. 

Of course, everyone has to make a crust - and Gartner has made quite a few billion of them.  But the magic quadrant is Gartner's cash cow.  It provides an easy to understand spatial relationship between vendors in terms of their technology and business acumen.  Therefore it makes the job of a CIO easier in terms of making vendor choices.  However, the number of magic quadrants has proliferated over the years making it appear that Gartner sees the product as a key money-spinner. 

Magic quadrants and black books must teach the wider market research and business intelligence community a more fundamental lesson, however.  If research can be condensed into a simple metric it's more likely to become useful and pervasive.  Too many research companies fixate on data rather than the simple message it conveys.  But in the case of most survey research firms they do at least have sound methodologies behind their findings.

The would-be national dump out on the Texas-New Mexico line at the southern end of the Panhandle has been studied for four years and received no fewer than 14 permit application revisions. Key TCEQ staff resigned over the approval and called out the Commissioners for their 2-1 decision.

The dump could be as close as 18 feet from groundwater, one former TCEQ staffer told me. But It is unclear whether or not the site overlies the nation's largest freshwater aquifer or just skirts it. Something a contested case hearing would settle.

Here's part of the release that went out a few hours ago:

The Sierra Club this week filed suit in state district court to overturn a decision by the state's environmental regulatory agency to grant a license for disposal of thousands of cubic feet of radioactive "byproduct" material in Andrews County, Texas, just a few miles from the Texas-New Mexico border.

The lawsuit aims to force the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) to grant a "contested case" hearing on the license to the Sierra Club and several residents of Eunice, New Mexico, whose requests for such a proceeding were denied by the state agency. The disposal license was issued to Waste Control Specialists LLC (WCS), a politically well-connected company that is pursuing authorization to dispose of even greater volumes of radioactive waste at its Andrews County dump.

Said Lone Star chapter head Ken Kramer:

"The granting of a license to bury radioactive waste in West Texas without the public scrutiny that a contested case hearing would provide is one of the more egregious actions taken by the TCEQ Commissioners in recent months - and that's saying a lot.

"Given all of the concerns raised about the WCS license by former TCEQ staff who reviewed the application, it seems that a majority of the stateenvironmental commissioners were hoping to sweep things under the rug byissuing the license without a contested case hearing. We're taking thismatter to court to make sure that the problems with the proposed burial get the attention they deserve."

---

Michael Totty of the The Wall Street Journal argues for and against nuclear power in yesterday's op-ed newsletter. There's plenty I disagree with within the write-up, but his close addresses an issue most overlook: the related likelihood of nuclear proliferation.

By far the greatest risk is the possibility that an expansion of nuclear power will contribute to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Plants that enrich uranium for power plants can also be used to enrich for bombs; this is the path Iran is suspected of taking in developing a weapons program. An ambitious expansion of nuclear power would require a lot more facilities for enriching uranium, broadening this risk. Facilities for reprocessing spent nuclear fuel for reuse pose the danger that the material can be diverted for weapons.

Expansion of nuclear power in the U.S. doesn't pose a great proliferation risk, but a nuclear renaissance will put a strain on the current anti-proliferation system. Most of the growth world-wide is expected to be in countries -- such as those in the Middle East and Africa -- where a nuclear-energy program could give cover to surreptitious weapons development and create the local expertise in handling and processing nuclear materials.

The dangers of nuclear proliferation would be heightened if a nuclear revival turned to reprocessing of spent fuel to reduce the amount of high-level waste that builds up and to maintain adequate fuel supplies. Reprocessing is a problem because it can produce separated plutonium -- which is easier to steal or divert for weapons production, as North Korea has done, than plutonium contained in highly radioactive fuel. And commercial reprocessing plants produce so much plutonium that keeping track of it all is difficult, making it easier to divert enough for weapons without the loss being detected.

If nuclear power really were able to make a big dent in greenhouse emissions, then it would be worth the time and resources necessary to address all these problems. Instead, though, the magnitude of these difficulties will keep any nuclear renaissance too small to make a difference, and will require expensive government support just to achieve modest gains. Those resources are better spent elsewhere.

And Business Week hints at the dangers of reprocessing spent fuel and the French model in general:

And while France has the world's biggest fuel-reprocessing program, it still hasn't found a permanent home for a growing pile of highly radioactive waste that's left over. The waste sits in heavily guarded storage at Areva's La Hague reprocessing plant ...

The trouble is, separating out plutonium in the spent fuel for reuse is costly and dangerous, argue critics like Princeton University physicist Frank N. von Hippel. And in any case, worries over separated plutonium being diverted to make bombs led the U.S. to ban reprocessing 31 years ago.

---

Back in SA, if you haven't gotten this announcement yet you may want to consider...

As you may know, the Board of Directors of the Friends of Friedrich Wilderness Park meets every other month, and we will be meeting this Wednesday, July 2 at 6:30 at the Friedrich Park Classroom. This meeting will begin with an informational session that might be of interest to many of you. Eric Lautzenheiser (the City's Natural Areas Director and ex officio member of the Board) and I will be presenting a short overview of the history of planning efforts in regard to Friedrich Park and its environs. Over the years, the City and the Friends have commissioned a series of plans, and we would like to present these in the context of their past effect and future relevance. We feel this is especially important right now as the area around Friedrich Park is undergoing very rapid development, and as the Park itself becomes an increasingly utilized resource.

Also invited to attend will be a representative from Councilwoman Cibrian's office, and developers seeking to move forward on projects near the Park.

If you are interested in attending, reply to Denise at JDKDSCH@aol.com.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

It should come as little surprise, then, that Apple tops the BusinessWeek-Boston Consulting Group’s list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies for the third year in a row. That sort of staying power speaks volumes about the sort of innovation that matters today. Unlike the Post-it Note, which proves the value of lone inventors, the iPod epitomizes today’s innovation sensibilities. These include the ascendance of design, the focus on the user’s experience, and the power of ecosystems: The iPod is a hit because it works so seamlessly with the iTunes software. The company’s much-anticipated iPhone, which launches in June, will likely keep Apple high on our list next year too.

There are some surprises this year, including four new companies in the top 25—Disney, Boeing, Genentech, and Cisco Systems. In other cases, the resilience of corporate reputation was surprising. Wal-Mart Stores suffers from slow growth, but still commands respect for its supply-chain innovations. Dell wears the brand halo of an innovator for its efficient direct-to-consumer model, though it suffered through a management shakeup and fell from No. 14 to No. 22. And what of 3M? It fell too, from No. 3 in 2006 to No. 7 this year.

2007 Rank	2006 Rank	Company Name	HQ CITY	HQ COUNTRY	HQ CONTINENT	STOCK RETURNS 2001-2006*	REVENUE GROWTH 2001-2006*	MARGIN GROWTH 2001-2006*	PATENT CITATION INDEX**
1	1	APPLE	Cupertino, CA	USA	North America	50.60	29.21	NA***	34
2	2	GOOGLE	Mountain View, CA	USA	North America	NA^	NA^	NA^	1
3	4	TOYOTA MOTOR	Toyota	Japan	Asia	20.50	8.30	5.21	361
4	6	GENERAL ELECTRIC	Fairfield, CT	USA	North America	1.11	5.06	1.36	155
5	5	MICROSOFT	Redmond, WA	USA	North America	0.83	11.85	-3.04	174
6	7	PROCTER & GAMBLE	Cincinnati, OH	USA	North America	12.20	11.69	3.70	105
7	3	3M	St. Paul, MN	USA	North America	7.77	7.35	5.49	57
8	43	WALT DISNEY CO.	Burbank, CA	USA	North America	11.71	6.29	7.35	8
9	10	IBM	Armonk, NY	USA	North America	-3.48	1.26	4.97	94
10	13	SONY	Tokyo	Japan	Asia	-2.62	0.60	1.14	418
11	20	WAL-MART	Bentonville, AR	USA	North America	-3.35	9.79	3.54	0
12	23	HONDA MOTOR	Tokyo	Japan	Asia	13.61	7.40	0.38	377
13	8	NOKIA	Espoo	Finland	Europe	-9.24	5.68	4.37	287
14	9	STARBUCKS	Seattle, WA	USA	North America	30.04	24.07	1.51	2
15	22	TARGET	Minneapolis, MN	USA	North America	7.55	8.32	4.23	0
16	16	BMW	Munich	Germany	Europe	4.30	4.96	-1.23	84
17	12	SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS	Seoul	South Korea	Asia	36.24	4.60	8.07	1000
18	11	VIRGIN GROUP	London	United Kingdom	Europe	Private	Private	Private	0
19	17	INTEL	Santa Clara, CA	USA	North America	-7.57	5.92	12.55	216
20	21	AMAZON.COM	Seattle, WA	USA	North America	29.53	27.96	NA***	0
21	70	BOEING	Chicago, IL	USA	North America	19.91	1.12	-4.23	59
22	14	DELL	Round Rock, TX	USA	North America	-1.59	12.87	-5.24	16
23	27	GENENTECH	South San Francisco, CA	USA	North America	24.50	34.85	32.40	4
24	18	EBAY	San Jose, CA	USA	North America	12.45	51.47	4.91	1
25	28	CISCO SYSTEMS	San Jose, CA	USA	North America	8.58	5.02	205.04	20
26	30	MOTOROLA	Schaumburg, IL	USA	North America	10.10	7.40	NA***	466
27	25	SOUTHWEST AIRLINES	Dallas, TX	USA	North America	-3.57	10.34	-1.98	0
28	15	IDEO	Palo Alto, CA	USA	North America	Private	Private	Private	1
28	19	IKEA	Helsingborg	Sweden	Europe	Private	Private	Private	0
30	31	DAIMLERCHRYSLER	Stuttgart	Germany	Europe	4.22	-0.16	19.00	181
31	42	HEWLETT-PACKARD	Palo Alto, CA	USA	North America	16.70	15.17	10.47	258
32	29	NIKE	Beaverton, OR	USA	North America	13.21	9.58	3.78	822
33	40	BP	London	United Kingdom	Europe	11.80	8.52	3.49	2
34	24	RESEARCH IN MOTION	Waterloo	Canada	North America	NA^	NA^	NA^	34
35	NR	AT&T	San Antonio, TX	USA	North America	3.00	6.55	-7.27	16
36	NR	CITIGROUP	New York, NY	USA	North America	6.70	5.57	3.81	1
37	NR	VERIZON	New York, NY,	USA	North America	0.20	5.58	-6.80	5
38	67	ROYAL PHILIPS ELECTRONICS	Amsterdam	The Netherlands	Europe	-1.10	-3.56	NA***	97
39	NR	NINTENDO	Kyoto	Japan	Asia	7.80	2.60	0.30	8
40	84	COSTCO WHOLESALE	Issaquah, WA	USA	North America	4.07	11.57	-1.44	0
41	NR	VOLKSWAGEN	Wolfsburg	Germany	Europe	14.66	3.44	-18.88	4
42	55	PFIZER	New York, NY	USA	North America	-5.89	8.56	-4.36	15
43	NR	BEST BUY	Richfield, MN	USA	North America	8.86	10.71	3.20	0
44	53	JOHNSON & JOHNSON	New Brunswick, NJ	USA	North America	4.14	10.02	1.33	31
45	87	AMGEN	Thousand Oaks, CA	USA	North America	3.89	28.86	-4.33	1
46	NR	MERCK	Whitehouse Station, NJ	USA	North America	-1.20	-13.86	6.16	7
47	NR	NEWS CORPORATION	New York, NY	USA	North America	11.00	14.19	4.18	0
48	100	MCDONALD'S	Oak Brook, IL	USA	North America	12.87	7.74	1.61	0
49	85	LG ELECTRONICS	Seoul	South Korea	Asia	NA^	NA^	NA^	394
50	51	EXXONMOBIL	Irving, TX	USA	North America	16.75	15.03	9.09	17

Methodology
The BusinessWeek-Boston Consulting Group 2007 list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies is based on a senior management survey about innovation and was distributed electronically to executives worldwide in late 2006. In October, surveys were sent to the 1,500 largest global corporations, determined by market capitalization in U.S. dollars, with instructions to send the survey to their top 10 executives in charge of innovation. We also distributed the survey to senior management members of the BusinessWeek Market Advisory Board, an online panel consisting of BusinessWeek readers, and via the Knowledge@Wharton e-mail newsletter. Survey participation was voluntary and anonymous, and the survey closed in March, 2007. The survey consisted of 20 general questions on innovation and an optional 12 questions focused on innovation metrics.

A total of 2,468 executives answered the survey. Of those indicating their location, 77% were from North America, 12% were from Europe, and 9% were from Asia or the Pacific region. A larger share of North American voters this year may explain some movement in the rankings of some companies on our list.

Analysis and data provided in collaboration with the innovation practice of The Boston Consulting Group, BCG-ValueScience, along with Standard & Poor's Compustat data and company reports, and the Delphion patent database. We broke ties by comparing one-year total shareholder returns between 12/30/05 and 12/29/06. In ties between a public and a private company, we assumed the private company's shareholder return to be equal to the average return of the public companies on the list, or 19.6%. Ties remain only where two or more private companies receive the same number of votes.

*Stock returns are annualized,12/31/01 to 12/29/06, and account for price appreciation and dividends. Compound growth rates for revenues and operating margins are based on 2001-2006 fiscal year data as it was originally stated. Operating margin is earnings before interest and taxes as a percentage of revenue. Where possible, quarterly and semi-annual data are being used to bring performance for pre-June year ends closer to December 2006. Financial figures are calculated in local currency.

**The patent citation index reflects how often the company's patents filed over the past five years have been cited as a basis for other innovation. The number is calculated by adding, for all patents filed between 2001 and 2005, the number of times each patent or application has been cited or mentioned by other patents up until December 31, 2006. We then adjusted the citation counts for patent age, since older patents have a greater likelihood of being cited than more recent ones. The age-adjusted counts were then indexed to a linear scale

***Calculating five-year compound annual growth rate for operating margins was not possible when either figure was negative.

^Insufficient data.

Copyright 2000, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.

Stocks: Beware the Sucker's Rally

After a tough winter for the stock market, some signs of spring are appearing.

The broad Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index jumped 5.12% from Mar. 18 to Mar. 25, while the battered financial sector has done even better. The Financial Select Sector SPDR (XLF) exchange-traded fund has surged 11% in the past five days.

Both measures are down almost 8% since the New Year, with the Financial SPDR down a whopping 21.7% in the past six months and the S&P 500 off 10.8%. But that just points to how welcome this recent rally is for depressed and anxious investors.

The U.S. economy’s slowdown and the financial crisis have battered stocks for months, but some market observers are now wondering if an end is in sight.Perhaps, with the recent collapse and bargain-basement buyout of Bear Stearns (BSC), stocks have hit bottom and investors can begin to put the bear market of 2008 behind them.

Not so fast, market experts say. Yes, there’s a chance the worst is behind us, but there’s an equal or better possibility the stock market is experiencing a classic “bear market rally,” they say.

Taiwan's Asustek has produced a global hit by shrinking the size, horsepower, and price tag—down to $300

While computer makers have pushed to build faster, more powerful laptops in recent years, the executives at Taiwan's Asustek Computer decided to try something different. They thought some people wanted a simpler computer. And they were right. Since its introduction last October, Asustek's Eee PC—a mini-laptop that retails for as little as $300—has become a huge hit around the world. The company expects to sell 5 million units this year. "We changed the concept," says Chief Executive Officer Jerry Shen.

He's changing the public's perception of Asustek, too. The Taipei-based company has long operated in the obscurity that characterizes the manufacturers of computer components for Western tech vendors. Asustek has never built a brand name that could approach those of such Asian rivals as Lenovo (LNVGY) or Acer. Now, thanks to the success of the little Eee PC and some other innovative designs, Asustek has a chance to break into tech's big leagues. The company, which sells the mini-laptop in the U.S. through retailers such as Amazon.com (AMZN) and Best Buy (BBY), is already the world's No. 6 producer of notebook computers and aims to crack the top three by 2013. Those spots are currently held by Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Dell (DELL), and Acer.

These new mini-laptops/netbooks are great. They're small, cheap and have great battery life, which make them perfect for lugging around. I know a few people who have the 7" model and find those too small (that's what she said..) but they've hit it spot on with the 9" and 10" - with more typing friendly keyboard too.

The big players right now: Asus Eee PC, HP Mini-note, MSI Wind, Acer One, Dell E.

I would recommend the Wind, Eee PC or Dell E depending on your preference of HDD or SSD - shocking how I'm not suggesting an Apple product! I pre-ordered the Wind myself, because it's probably the only one that will arrive before I leave for Europe.

For prospective MBA students who used the Scoretop site to prepare for the GMAT, the news was devastating. GMAC is analyzing the hard drive and it vowed to cancel the scores of anyone who used the site to cheat on the exam, prohibit them from retaking the test, and notify the schools that received the tainted scores. That could mean rejection for applicants, expulsion for current students, and unspecified sanctions for graduates. "I am extremely stressed out," one GMAT test-taker who used the Scoretop site wrote in a comment to BusinessWeek.com's original story about the scandal. "I am so upset and worried right now."

I'm kind of curious how they're going to gather the so called "hard evidence" to prove that a student intentionally cheated before canceling his/her scores and possibly jeopardizing their careers?

It's unclear exactly how Scoretop obtained the live questions, although at least some of them were posted by the site's users after having taken the GMAT. It's also unclear whether everyone who used the site knew the questions were live. The site described the questions as being "fully owned by Scoretop [and] written by our own…tutors."

At the same time, though, many of the posts found on the site strongly suggest visitors knew the questions were live. The messages reference question "sets" and "JJs"—an acronym for "jungle juice"—which refer to groups of live questions that have been reconstructed by test-takers and posted on the site.

Jungle Juice? C'mon give me a break! This is so weak. The issue here is how did those "live" questions get into unauthorized hands in the first place? GMAC is making it sound like it's the students fault for using a resource among many others to prepare for the exams. I'm not condoning the actions of the website owner - I think he should be thrown in jail. However most of the 6000 students who paid for the service probably did not realize they were "cheating". Unless they have really hard evidence that someone intentionally used the website knowing that the questions were "live" I think GMAC needs to put this behind them and focus on "locking" up their questions so this doesn't happen again.

The bigger question for me is I'm surprised B-Schools still use standardized tests as one of the components to determine a prospective candidates admissions eligibility. I remember taking the GMAT way back in 1990 and it was not a pleasant experience to say the least - although I did score enough to get into the MBA program of my choice. You had to get to the testing center by 7:30 am on a Saturday to check in for the exam that began promptly at 8:30 am. In those days the exams were not computerized - you had to use a #2 pencil to color in the oval and after 4 hours it was not just your head that hurt but your fingers as well. IMO standardized tests should be eliminated and it has been proven time and again that they're not always an accurate measure of someones aptitude. Especially these days students entering MBA programs do so after a few years of working in the field. Experience along with interviews and essays and other social/extracurricular activities should be plenty enough to determine a prospective students eligibility IMO.

Now, I know many of you might not think this applies to communication majors. BUT IT DOES.  I've said this before, but communication is all about technology, and technology is all about communication.  And, you don't really need to be a super Web design guru or hot-shot programmer to participate in this tech surge.

Here's a quote from a recent email from a former student that works at Convio, here in Austin:

"I've been talking with some other folks in the internet software world that also do hiring and we all have the same problem which I thought you might find useful to pass on to your students. We are all looking for really good HTML and CSS people for front-end work. However, the people who are good at CSS and HTML are usually not looking for that kind of work and are really wanting to do PHP, javascript, AJAX etc. So there is a gap between the unqualified and the overly qualified if people just focus on getting really good at front-end languages."

Lots of companies need the basics. They need people who understand the environment. They need people who are flexible and enthusiastic and willing to learn.  And, they need people who can communicate!

So, it's not all gloom and doom out there.  Seize the day!

The basic gist of the article is summed up with:

The Good: Great for reading, portable, and easy to use

The Bad: Easy to forget to charge the battery; the rare pictures don't look very good

The Bottom Line: A fair, if imperfect, replacement for the daily newspaper

I've never been a fan of newspapers, they are oversized and my fingers get all black and smudged with the ink. I love being able to read the news online and I think Kindle is a good resource for newspaper reading, but not for books.

ANALYSIS:  I spent the 1980s and '90s in Silicon Valley (Palo Alto, San Jose, San Francisco), and in that time saw a couple of successive tech booms.  Now Russia's got a tech boom going, and I'm interested (only partly because I spent too many years in college & grad school studying Soviet affairs).

Top 10 Russian Web 2.0 Sites - GoalEurope.com

Vkontakte.ru – a successful clone of Facebook. Vkontakte is the most visited site in Russia. It has over 13 million registered users.

Mail.ru is Russia’s leading mail portal, which has grown to include many other social networking features.

Yandex.ru is Russia’s leading search engine, with additional services including email, news etc. The search engine is optimised for the morphology of Russian language.

Odnoklassniki.ru has been sweeping Russia by storm. It is a simple tool to find schoolmates. Odnoklassniki is the fourth most visited site and has 18 million registered users.

Rambler.ru is another very successful search engine. It offers services such as photo and video sharing, dating and games. It owns Russia’s most popular messenger / VoIP phone system ICQ.

LiveInternet.ru is Russia’s leading website of personal blogs, but in reality it combines various online services including web mail, dating and file sharing.

LiveJournal.ru, the US blogging site, has become a phenomenon in Russia, forming the most lively uncensored information portal. From journalists and government critics to pop singers and comedians, many well known personalities share their views on current events.

Loveplanet.ru is Russia’s leading dating website, which claims to have 11 million registered users.

Smotri.ru is Russian analog of YouTube, and despite rated by Alexa at the place number 36, has shown the highest level of visits amongst the independent video sharing sites with the exception of YouTube itself.

Diary.ru is a blogging site, which allows its users to form communities.

The country has a strong tech foundation, in most ways thanks to the Soviet-era Cold War brute emphasis on science and technology, resulting in Russian universities today graduating some 200,000 scientists and engineers each year.  There are also 3,500 scientific research institutes, according to the BusinessWeek article last year, "Russia Bids to Become Tech Tiger").  The Russian government and judicial system appear to be getting more serious and sophisiticated in tech issues. For example, see last month's "Russian Court Sentences Businessman for Microsoft Piracy," which notes that "Clamping down on computer piracy is a demand of Russia's negotiating partners for its WTO entry" and claims that piracy dropped 15 percent in 2007.

Microsoft Russia is working with new young partners, who are in many cases building Web 2.0 applications on Microsoft's platforms because of their familiarity.  In the past couple of years the number of Microsoft partners more than doubled, from 6,000 to 14,000 (and the Russian firm CDC has just been awarded a Microsoft "Partner of the Year" award for mobility solutions).  Microsoft Russia has been increasing its ability to support and foster regional growth across the vastness of the country, nearly tripling its regional offices from 12 to 34 since 2004, from the industrialized western cities like St. Petersburg all the way to the new Siberian "Silicon Forest" in Novosibirsk and Akademgorodok.

And further upstream in the Russian tech river, Microsoft is working with the Russian Ministry of Education and three dozen other companies on a new project to develop technical-education software for 60,000 schools and their 12 million students.  More Web 2.0 and 3.0 innovators for the future...

Oh, by the way - if you do speak Russian, rapidly growing Microsoft Russia is searching for a new leader. The highly regarded Olga Dergunova was recruited away by one of Europe's largest banks, and the interim leader Birger Steen was interviewed this week by CNews Russian IT Review on the challenges of the highly competitive market for top leaders in Russia's burgeoning tech industry.  Birger even says he'd be willing to share responsibilities for a period - I've worked with him a bit, great guy.  Govorit po-Russki?

 Email this post to a friend

Grandpa Blake used to tell me: “there are two types of people in the world; those who pay interest and those who earned interest.”  Grandpa tried to always be the type that earned interest and his 50+ grandchildren will always be grateful.

Given my experience this past year in the Orthodontics industry, I’ve been thinking that there might in fact be 3 types of people -- those who pay ‘no interest.’

But then I picked up my copy of Business Week and reviewed the inflation indexes and realized that my grandfather was right -- those who charge ‘no interest’ in effect are saying to their patients, “No worries, I’ll pay your interest for you.”  Said another way, Orthodontists are the type of people who pay interest and their patients are the type that collect interest.

According to the statistics I’ve been reviewing, 70% or more of today’s Orthodontist patients are receiving treatment under “no interest” (aka the doctor pays interest) financing.  DOES THIS MAKE SENSE?

Orthodontists have adopted bad financial practices because it has been an industry tradition.  I’m challenging doctors to decide now to re-align your financial practices.  Make the changes gently and thoughtfully.  Gradually move more and more of your patients off of this no interest welfare program.

Orthodontists be smart!

B2

I really enjoyed Winning but I thought Winning: The Answers was just okay.

Each of the 74 chapters starts with a question and the questions are broken down into the following categories / sections:

Global Competition: On the Brave New World
Leadership: On Being a Better Boss
Management Principles and Practices: On Running a Business to Win
Careers: On Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of a Promotion
Privately Held: On Working for the Family
Winning and Losing: On Why Business is Good

And each section starts with a one to two page essay on the subject.

The Welchs write a weekly column in Business Week, called The Welch Way, answering questions about business and as they write in the introduction to Winning: The Answers much of the book comes from this no-nonsense column written in the same to-the-point optimistic style as Winning.

I particularly like Question 16, Building Trust From the Top Down:

Is there a short answer for building trust in the workplace?

-Johannesburg, South Africa

To which the Welchs begin their response with:

Yes, very short: Say what you mean, and do what you say!

I also like Question 54, Am I An Entrepreneur:

I am currently a consultant with a small organizational development firm, but I dream about starting my own business. How do I know if I have what it takes to be an entrepreneur? I always experience such conflicting emotions when it comes to this issue.

-Johannesburg, South Africa

To which the Welchs reply with four questions to help the consultant answer his own questions:

1. Do you have a great new idea that makes your product or service compelling to customers in a way no competitor can match?
2. Do you have the stamina to hear “no” over and over again and keep smiling?
3. Do you hate uncertainty? If so, stop reading here.
4. Do you have the personality to attract bright people to chase your dream with you?

Some of the questions also come from talks the Welchs have given since the publication of Winning or from the lectures they have given at their respective business schools (Jack teaches as MIT's Sloan School of Management and Suzy teaches at Babson College's Center for Women's Leadership).

I don't doubt that the Welchs provide much insight in their weekly column, I just don't like my books to feel like a bound version of such a column. Especially since such writing can quickly become outdated.

Though I suppose if you really look up to Jack Welch, this book could come in handy as a reference guide when you want to find out Welch's ideas on a particular topic.

I recommend that folks pick up a copy of Winning to learn about Jack Welch's business methods and ideas but don't bother with Winning: The Answers and just start reading Business Week's The Welch Way on-line or just visit the Welch's website.

My first year of business school was 2001, right as a business revolution was occurring. Actually, it was on the back end of the dot-com implosion, when the term irrational exuberance changed from the ramblings of a "guy who didn't get the new economy" to accepted fact. In Houston, as in the rest of the country of course, the news was Enron. They were presented as a model for the new economy and an ideal that all companies should strive toward. BusinessWeek (a trusted and objective publication that I read every week) listed them as one of the top 50 performers in March 2000 and Ken Lay as one of the top 25 managers of the year two months earlier. One year later, the the economy went the wrong direction, Enron collapsed, and everyone took the perp walk.

Enron wasn't alone, of course. A quick cross reference of the rest of the list from 2000 and their respective market caps shows that pretty much the entire list took a nose dive, along with the entire economy. And BusinessWeek wasn't alone either. These companies took the entire country by surprise. A lot of smart people were taken for a ride and lost a lot of money. The notable exception was Warren Buffett, who warned against investing in the new economy, causing everyone to say he had lost touch, until he was proven brilliant.

All of this is to say that business writers love to identify and write up top performers. When companies excel, others want to know how they did it, and business writers want to give people what they want. In the best seller, Good to Great, Jim Collins analyzes companies that had taken the leap to greatness and distilled their formulas for success down to the commonalities. One of his metrics of greatness is investor return, relative to the competition, which is fair.

So if you had invested in his 11 great companies when the book came out, how would you have done, relative to the market? As of today, your investment in this portfolio of 11 companies would have grown by 62%, compared to 48% for the SP500. So he knew what he was talking about? Not really. One company in his portfolio, Nucor, is in the steel business - a very nice place to be - and is responsible for 116% of the portfolio's return. Removing this company would drop the portfolio's return to absolutely flat (-0.4%).

So, let's get to the point, or three points. First, when it comes to investing, firing your financial manager and investing in index funds (along with dollar-cost averaging), as our buddy Burton Malkiel said, is my suggestion. Make some side bets for fun if you like (which I do), but don't gamble your entire portfolio.

Second, horrible companies look great in the right place at the right time and get exposed when things go south. Be very very skeptical of high-flying companies and the ones that grab headlines.

Third, business rankings and business how-to books are worth about as much as weather reports and football predictions. They're great at telling you what just happened, but horrible at telling you what is going to happen.