America is the land of opportunity – that's the bedrock of the American dream. Many expect each generation to do better than the last. That dream of economic mobility is alive and well for Pam Krank and her husband, Brian McGee. (NPR)
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Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, warned Thursday that the structure of the euro zone had become "unsustainable" and criticized political leaders he said have been slow to respond to the sovereign debt crisis. (The New York Times)
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The proportion of Americans in their prime working years who have jobs is smaller than it has been at any time in the 23 years before the recession, according to federal statistics, reflecting the profound and lasting effects that the downturn has had on the nation’s economic prospects. (Washington Post)
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We humans are funny. Often we create beliefs or engage in behaviors that seem to help us in the short term, only to discover they get in the way of the lives we really want to live, or the people we want to become. (Harvard Business Review)
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Here's a recruiting riddle: What costs more but often works worse? Outside hires. Fueled by a conviction that there's plenty of talent in their ranks and backed by research showing that hiring outsiders can lead to costly missteps, firms are ramping up internal hiring efforts and investing in new career sites to boost intra-office movement. So far, those efforts are helping firms cut recruiting costs and retain high performers, companies say. (Wall Street Journal)
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Slashed health care coverage and frozen wages were the hallmark of the recession – at least for those who held onto their jobs. Yet even though the economy has improved, many of the employee benefits that were once guarantees are starting to look like a thing of the past. (CNN/Money)
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It's been a week since shares in Bankia plummeted on reports, later denied, that customers were pulling deposits out of the Spanish lender. Fears of a full-scale bank run in Greece have not yet materialized. But the possibility of a deposit run in Europe's peripheral states is still very much alive. It is also the thing that policymakers are least prepared for. (The Economist)
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Ronan Sato, a graduate student in applied statistics at Oxford University in England, has always been keen to work in his native Japan. But at a careers fair for overseas Japanese students, he found that corporate Japan did not reciprocate his enthusiasm. (The New York Times)
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Jason Kapalka didn’t give his alma mater much thought after he finished his studies in 1994. The University of Alberta graduate, who has a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in English, moved to San Francisco and didn’t join the alumni association, donate money, or return for reunions. "If I’d stayed in Edmonton, I probably would have," he says. The university didn’t forget him, though. (Bloomberg/Businessweek)
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As cities like this one try to reinvent themselves after losing large swaths of their manufacturing sectors, they are discovering that one of the most critical ingredients for a successful transformation — college graduates — is in perilously short supply. (The New York Times)
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Visit the new site for the 34th Annual Conference & Exposition this September in Indianapolis! And get ready for registration and housing, which opens June 11.
2012 Conference Site

 

Research in Motion went from a sleepy Canadian backwater to the world's most innovative and fastest growing phone company in no time. Now, with its Blackberry business all but stalled, the company's future has never looked more uncertain. (Fortune)
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The Facebook IPO, however rocky, marked a coming of age for the loose collection of technologies and services known as "social media." If Mark Zuckerberg had been elected governor of California, it would not have done as much to confer society’s seal of approval. It was almost as if the internet itself went public. (Wired)
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Are you making money renting your apartment on Airbnb? You’re a Micro-Entrepreneur. As more and more services let people monetize their own assets and knowledge, it’s creating a new sector of the economy. (Fast Company)
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These UConn MBA students are! Mallory Kievman's hiccup remedy has garnered support from Startup America and the University of Connecticut business school. (Inc.)
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One American's dream can be another American's nightmare. Consider: Some people long to live in big cities; others think cities have ruined the landscape. Some Americans love to drive big old honking SUVs; others see huge cars as pollution-producing monsters. For some people, the American dream is a steady office job. For others, the office is a sinkhole and the real dream is freedom from the office. (NPR)
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America is still recovering from the Great Recession and Europe is melting down, yet from a global perspective, the economy has never been as healthy or prosperous. The world economy enjoyed amazing growth from 2002-08, took a small dip in 2009, and then went back to growing. Sadly the good news seems to be coming to an end in Brazil, China, and India, and that’s horrible news for us. (Slate)
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Becoming a card-carrying member of your favorite business's loyalty program is getting more rewarding – even as many stores ditch the actual cards themselves. Retailers, supermarkets and other companies are increasingly adding new benefits to their loyalty programs, which offer shoppers discounts and other perks in exchange for regular business. (SmartMoney)
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If you want to invest broadly in the U.S. technology sector, conventional wisdom says one way to do it is to buy a fund that tracks the Nasdaq Composite Index. You might not be getting the broad tech-sector exposure you think, however. Roughly 12 percent of the Nasdaq's valuation comes from the stock of one company: Apple. (Bloomberg)
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Mellody Hobson has worked at Ariel Investments ever since she started as a college intern in 1997. Maybe that's why she roams far and wide to hone her leadership skills and collect big ideas. (Fortune)
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With just two weeks of Mad Men left to go, it’s clear that the delay of season five didn’t dent the show’s cultural impact. That’s a mixed blessing to anyone whose brand is associated with AMC’s high-style depiction of Madison Avenue in the 1960s. (Creator Matthew Weiner’s refusal to allow more product placement in the show was cited as a factor in the long hiatus.) The level of love or loathing for the series among marketers may depend, in part, on whether their company paid to be there. (Bloomberg/Businessweek)
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Companies need innovators – individuals who willing to take risks and who bring a spark of imagination and initiative to whatever they do. And millennials – because they have grown up as "digital natives" who use technologies to learn, connect, collaborate, and create on a daily basis – are a huge potential talent pool for companies.However, many millennials are very averse to working for large corporations – and many companies, in turn, don't know how to work with this generation. (Fast Company)
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CEOs are worrying about risky behavior by employees at the front lines of the business. Nobody wants to wind up like Jamie Dimon, head of JPMorgan Chase, whose cherished legacy has been pickled by what Dimon himself called "egregious mistakes" by an obscure group of bond traders at the firm. (Harvard Business Review)
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The last few years have been tough on U.S. workers, even those lucky enough to have kept their jobs. While layoffs squeezed more profits out of each remaining employee, vacation time dropped and job stress increased. (Bloomberg)
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