A full month after Superstorm Sandy slammed into the Northeast, business owners in the region are shifting efforts away from clearing roads or restoring power, to coping with the storm's long-term costs – and getting back to business. (The Wall Street Journal)
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It’s dangerous to rely on your job description to tell you what to do, or to wait for your manager to fine tune your job. It’s much safer, valuable, and satisfying to do it yourself. Here's how. (Fast Company)
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A strange inversion has happened in the past few months: Consumers have gone from being deeply pessimistic about the future to slightly optimistic at the same time that companies have moved from being slightly positive to increasingly negative. That discrepancy is intriguing, and raises the question: Which view will determine the course of the near future? Will the buoyed spirits of people carry the day, or will corporate glumness pull us down? (The Atlantic)
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The past week's holiday buying rush was a mad one, but it's far from the last time to find deals. Ten percent more people took advantage of this year's Black Friday than last year's, according to a survey of 6,500 people by research firm The NPD Group. In all, about a third of Americans did their holiday shopping between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and about half of tech buyers hit stores then, the survey found. (Mother Nature Network)
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Even as employers remain cautious next year about every dollar spent on employees, they'll also want workers to show greater skills and results. For employees who want to get ahead, basic competency won't be enough. To win a promotion or land a job next year, experts say there are four must-have job skills. (The Wall Street Journal)
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We all want to be better at something. After all, self-improvement is necessary to getting ahead at work. But once you know what you want to be better at – be it public speaking, using social media, or analyzing data – how do you start? Of course, learning techniques will vary depending on the skill and the person, but there are some general rules you can follow. (Harvard Business Review)
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Hiring managers at elite consulting and law firms tend to lower the technical bar for candidates with common backgrounds and interests over more intelligent prospects, according to new research. (Fortune)
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Bailouts beget more bailouts. That is the cautionary lesson from the latest revamping of Greece’s financial rescue deal, according to some economists. And they warn that unless Europe starts enforcing its own rules against bailouts and big budget deficits, governments will never get serious about putting their financial houses in order. (The New York Times)
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The odds are stacked against young people in Kenya. Three-quarters of those under 35 do not have jobs. Poverty and poor education have left 1.3 million youths unemployed – and studies suggest women are five times more likely to struggle to find work than men. (BBC News)
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Think Harvard Business School and you think the "case study" method of teaching. It’s as likely a pair as Lennon and McCartney or Kermit and Miss Piggy. But you would be hard pressed to think of a similar pairing between a single business school and good old-fashioned lecturing, or for that matter, a school and experiential learning. (Poets & Quants)
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At UC-Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, Senior Lecturer Sara Beckman explains to 30 MBA students the rules. Each team of five students must build the tallest free standing structure out of 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of blue tape, one yard of string, and one marshmallow. The marshmallow needs to be on top. They have all of 18 minutes to get it done. (Poets & Quants)
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The National Black MBA Association Atlanta Chapter (NBMBAA) presented $20,000 in scholarships at their annual luncheon held Friday, November 9. Keynote speaker, film producer Will Packer encouraged the students to follow their dreams, reach for the stars, and control their own destiny. (Atlanta Black Star)
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The other day, I joined NPR for a segment about high-tech holiday gifts. I was ready for the calls from listeners. I’d brushed up on cameras, phones, laptops, music players and game consoles. I was prepared to talk about limiting screen time, digital addiction, cyberbullying. I knew where to get the best deals. But all six callers had the same question: "What tablet should I get?" (The New York Times)
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Forget social media management apps. How many people know how to search text on a web page? And how many people still need computers with DVD drives? (Fast Company)
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Every mobile carrier wants to replace their old voice services with new VoIP-based systems utilizing their 4G networks. But first, they’ve got some significant kinks to iron out in the technology. Wireless testing and measurement vendor Spirent Communications (SPT) has identified a big problem with voice over LTE (VoLTE): It consumes twice as much power as a traditional 2G call, which could have big implications for mobile-phone battery life. (Bloomberg/Businessweek)
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Will Facebook continue its reign atop the social hierarchy? Will businesses get better returns on their social media investment? Will your CEO finally learn to tweet? Here’s a look at the biggest social media trends set to unfold in the year ahead. (Fast Company)
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Working closely with your customers to tweak offerings and even business models is a standard business practice. But some companies gain ideas and insights from their customers’ customers as well. (MIT/Sloan Management Review)
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What's the value of a meeting with a chief executive? For investors pondering large stakes in a company, a few minutes of a CEO's time can be worth millions of dollars, giving them deeper insight into a firm's strategy and prospects. (The Wall Street Journal)
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Cyber Monday set sales records and Black Friday spending was robust. But the long Black Friday weekend is no barometer for overall holiday shopping – it may even be a negative. (Christian Science Monitor)
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If you’re reading this, there’s an extremely good chance you – like millions of your fellow Americans – just lost out on one of the largest jackpots in history, the $550 million Powerball lottery. (MarketWatch)
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When you're sad, it's not just your waistline you need to watch. Unhappy people are also more likely to make foolish money decisions, new research shows. Sad people will often forgo extra money further down the road in order to get less money right away, according to a study conducted by professors at Harvard, Columbia and University of California Riverside. (CNN/Money)
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Walmart, the world's largest retailer, embraces social, mobile, and the startup spirit to compete against Amazon. Will it be enough? (Fast Company)
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Without comment on the perils of the fiscal cliff, I find it difficult to empathize with CEOs who gnash their teeth over uncertainty in the U.S. The U.S. economy has among the most fluid capital markets, the largest investment base, the most stable political system and the broadest base of consumers of any country in the world. (Harvard Business Review)
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Whenever the discussion turns to saving money in Medicare, the idea of raising the eligibility age often comes up. "I don't think you can look at entitlement reform without adjusting the age for retirement," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said on ABC's This Week last Sunday. "Let it float up another year or so over the next 30 years, adjust Medicare from 65 to 67. (NPR)
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One of the key questions lurking in the "fiscal cliff" talks – though well below the public's radar – is what happens to the alternative minimum tax – or AMT. Implemented in 1969 to make sure upper-income Americans pay their share of taxes, the AMT has increasingly snared more middle-income Americans over the years because it was never indexed for inflation. (CNBC)
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Yes: Management is a craft, rooted in experience. But one cannot teach the craft to people who lack the experience. Those who believe they have learned management by sitting still in an MBA classroom are a menace to society.
No: A business leader must have experience to truly hone his or her management skills. However, two years in a modern and well-functioning MBA programme will accelerate students on the path to leadership. (The Economist)
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Slate asked our readers to assign us stories, and more than 1,000 of you wanted me to explain why hotels are so expensive. As a reader noted, "The cheapest hotel room in my city’s downtown is $90/night, while apartments run about $700-1000/month – closer to $30/night," a huge difference. (Slate)
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Trying to decide how to thank your employees for their hard work over the past 12 months? Consider this: For the second year in a row, almost nobody wants to celebrate the season with a party, "even with an open bar." (CNN/Money)
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