Five Mimics We Love
 
 

ScitableScience educators and students interact to share peer-reviewed published content and join virtual classrooms. It’s as if the Internet could finally work out okay for nerds.

Warby ParkerNever having to try on greasy floor-model glasses? Avoiding the high-pressure sales environment? Girls (and boys) will make passes at … Parker.

UnvarnishedCreate an Unvarnished page and then other people rate you as a business professional. Terrifying but essential in these TMI times. How soon can I enlist people to write fake positive reviews of me?

VevoTransforming the way we watch music videos online and the way advertisers make money from them. We haven’t been this excited about videos since “Thriller.”

Rent the RunwayBuys that expensive gown you’ll only wear once so you don’t have to — then rents it to you at 90% off retail. Between this and Gilt Groupe, will you ever see the inside of a department store again?

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Les données sur des réclamations pour les avantages sans emploi pour la semaine finie le 4 septembre sont dues à 8:30 heure du matin EDT, et les économistes dans une enquête de Reuters prévoient un total de 470.000 nouveaux classements comparés à 472.000 en semaine antérieure.

Également le dû à 8:30 heure du matin est les États-Unis. Données de commerce international de juillet, avec des économistes dans une enquête de Reuters prévoyant le déficit commercial commercial pour se rétrécir à &#36 ; 47.3 milliards de &#36 ; 49.9 milliards en juin.

&quot ; Les investisseurs parient que nous ne sommes probablement pas loin d’un rebond économique, et avec l’offre de liens (de trésor) pas beaucoup d’un rendement le profil de risque-récompense dans les actions ordinaires devient attrayant, &quot ; André dit Bakhos, directeur d’analytics du marché aux valeurs de Lek à New York.

500 futurs de S&P ont monté 4.2 points et étaient au-dessus de juste valeur, une formule qui évalue l’évaluation en prenant en considération des taux, des dividendes et le temps d’intérêt à l’expiration sur le contrat. Le futur moyen industriel de Dow Jones a gagné 28 points et 100 futurs de Nasdaq ont ajouté 7.75 points.

On s’attend à ce que le volume soit bas encore pendant que la nouvelle année juive est célébrée et beaucoup de participants du marché restent sur les lignes de touche. Les six jours du plus bas volume de l’année sont venus en mois dernier.

Le futur de S&P est en hausse 5.5 pour cent en sept dernières sessions, le meilleur une telle exécution depuis le mi-Juillet.

Le diagramme moyen mobile de divergence de convergence de 500 futurs de S&P a tourné de plus en plus têtu après la ligne de MACD déplacée au-dessus de la ligne zéro, confirmant la semaine dernière &#39 ; faire appel de s à une variation dans l’élan.

L’huile s’est levée 0.4 pour cent environ à &#36 ; 75 par baril, tirant une certaine force d’un premier rapport des inventaires en baisse des États-Unis. Indus…

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BP&#39 ; le Golfe de s de la flaque de pétrole de Mexique a soulevé des inquiétudes globalement concernant les dangers du forage dans les eaux jamais-profondes.

Les producteurs de la Mer du Nord combattent pour convaincre le gouvernement britannique que le R-U n’a pas besoin d’un moratoire sur le perçage, comme celui imposé aux États-Unis par le Président Barack Obama, en attendant un examen de la cause du désastre.

La Norvège a arrêté de nouveaux projets en mer jusqu’à ce que les causes du souffle d’installation que cela a mené à la flaque d’huile de BP sont connus.

Un rapport de l’énergie de terrains communaux et le comité choisi de changement climatique jeudi ont indiqué que Hayward témoignerait mercredi la semaine prochaine et serait accompagné de BP&#39 ; patron Bernard de la Mer du Nord de s Looney et marque Bly, BP&#39 ; tête de s de la sûreté.

Mercredi cette semaine, Bly a présenté BP&#39 ; sonde interne de s dans l’accident qui a rejeté la majeure partie du blâme pour l’accident sur BP&#39 ; entrepreneurs de s, foreuse Transocean et Halliburton, la compagnie qui a cimenté le puits.

Les compagnies ont rejeté les accusations.

Transocean&#39 ; le roi de Paul de patron de la Mer du Nord de s est apparu avant que le comité de terrains communaux mardi et a été contesté au sujet d’un rapport du régulateur BRITANNIQUE de sûreté dans lequel les employés ont allégué qu’ils avaient été faits pression sur pour ne pas rapporter des soucis de sûreté.

Tandis que le comité disait elle interrogerait Hayward au sujet des implications du Golfe de la flaque de pétrole de Mexique pour le perçage d’eau profonde au R-U, l’ordre du jour n’a pas spécifiquement inclus des plans pour discuter les causes de la flaque elle-même.

Hayward doit être remplacé le mois prochain par Bob Dudley, qui mène actuellement l’effort de nettoyage de BP…

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Today we meet a Russian whose brains are in the very heart of most computers. He is a real New Russian a man that preferred hi-tech innovative research to oil trading and has created hundreds of revolutionary software products. He built his business on marketing a breakthrough antiviral computer protection programme, and he was among scientists, authors, artists and cosmonauts who received the Russian 2008 State award. Evgeny Kaspersky is our guest in the Spotlight studio.

L’amende — un du plus grand jamais imposé en Grande-Bretagne — a été lié à Goldman&#39 ; s a préoccupé le produit de hypothèque-sécurité d’abaque, qui a eu comme conséquence la banque d’affaires étudié par les valeurs des États-Unis et la Commission d’échange (sec).

En juillet, Goldman a accepté de payer &#36 ; 550 millions pour arranger des frais de fraude civile au-dessus de la façon dont il a lancé le produit d’hypothèque de subprime d’abaque, finissant mois des négociations qui ont cliqueté le bank&#39 ; clients et investisseurs de s.

Le produit d’abaque a été lancé sur le marché par le banquier français Fabrice Tourre. Tourre, qui s’était doublé comme &quot ; Ouvrier fabuleux, &quot ; allégations niées que lui ou la banque avait trompé des investisseurs au-dessus du produit à haut risque d’abaque.

Britain&#39 ; l’autorité de services financiers de s a indiqué jeudi que Goldman ne l’avait pas en juste proportion informée de la recherche américaine sur l’affaire d’abaque.

&quot ; L’International de Goldman Sachs ne s’est mis à cacher rien, mais ses systèmes et commandes défectueux ont signifié que le niveau et la qualité de ses communications avec le FSA sont tombés loin au-dessous de ce que nous comptons d’une société autorisée, &quot ; Directeur Margaret Cole de FSA a dit dans un rapport.

En réponse de sept-mot à l’amende de FSA, un porte-parole de Goldman Sachs a dit : &quot ; We&#39 ; re a satisfait la matière est resolved.&quot ;

Tourre avait lancé le dos de produit d’abaque en 2007 — vers la taille d’un marché haussier courez et juste avant le début de la crise de crédit qui a cliqueté des marchés et a causé une récession énorme en valeur de beaucoup de produits hypothèque-connexes de dette.

Le FSA a indiqué que Goldman Sachs ne l’avait pas informé du Th…

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La plus défunte valeur vedette les indicateurs économiques que rendent compte le jeudi a indiqué les perspectives plus faibles pour des espérances inférieures provenues par croissance 2010 de deuxième-moitié pour des dépenses de consommation, l’investissement productif et la construction privée.

&quot ; On s’attend à ce que la croissance du quart courant maintenant soit peu meilleure que le dernier trimestre enregistré par avance d’une manière décevante douce, &quot ; l’aperçu a indiqué. Le produit intérieur brut s’est développé à un taux annuel maigre de 1.6 pour cent dans le deuxième trimestre, moins que la moitié du premier quarter&#39 ; s taux de 3.7 pour cent.

Mais l’economists&#39 ; le groupe a dit que, après la correction molle du milieu de l’année, elle a vu un arrangement de tendance de amélioration progressif dedans avec la croissance surpassant légèrement le taux tendanciel dans la deuxième moitié de 2011.

La valeur vedette définit la croissance de tendance de PIB à environ 2-3/4 pour cent par an.

&quot ; Pour tout le 2010, le PIB en termes réels maintenant est prévu pour augmenter 2.7 pour cent sur une base d’année en année, 0.2 un point de moins qu’il y a un mois et 0.6 d’un point moins que prévu en juin, &quot ; l’aperçu a indiqué.

Sa prévision de consensus pour la croissance du PIB en termes réels en 2011 a été coupée par 0.3 d’un point il y a d’un mois à 2.5 pour cent.

&quot ; Etant donné la profondeur de la récession, une prévision rudement de croissance de tendance cette année et de prochains montants à un pas très décevant de rétablissement, avec peu de progrès prévu pour être fait en abaissant le taux de chômage, &quot ; la prévision a indiqué.

Sa prévision de consensus est que le taux de chômage des États-Unis finira cette année à 9.6 pour cent et tombera seulement à 9 pour cent vers la fin de 2011.

Elle a prévu cela après l’établissement d’une moyenne de 554.000 unités de nouveaux logements en 2009, sta…

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I keep telling people about this one passage in The Big Short (which is totally awesome and very worth reading if you want to have a better understanding of why we’re in the financial state we’re in). Anyway, it’s actually a footnote to the following quote from John Mack from Morgan Stanley (in response to an analyst asking how in the world they let one desk lose $8 billion):

Bill, look, let’s be clear. One, this trade was recognized and entered into our accounts. Two, it was entered into our risk management system. It’s very simple. when these got, it’s simple, it’s very painful, so I’m not being glib. When these guys stress loss the scenario on putting on this position, they did not envision…we could have this degree of default, right. It is fair to say that our risk management division did not stress those losses as well. It’s just simple as that. Those are big fat tail risks that caught us hard, right. That’s what happened.

The quote is nothing special. It’s confusing and obtuse, but otherwise unremarkable. Which is exactly the point Michael Lewis makes in his footnote: “It’s too much to expect the people who run big Wall Street firms to speak plain English, since so much of their livelihood depends on people believing that what they do cannot be translated into plain English.”

Since reading that I’ve been thinking about a bunch of different industries that fit that bill. Law seems like an obvious one: If we all believed we should be able to read and understand legal documents there would be a lot less money spent on lawyers. Not sure what I have a bigger point than that, but seemed worth sharing.

Reprinted from NoahBrier.com

Noah Brier is currently head of planning and strategy at The Barbarian Group. Prior to that he worked as a strategist at Naked Communications, a creative lead at Renegade Marketing, and before that wrote for American Demographics Magazine. He is also responsible for a few Internet experiments like Brand Tags, likemind, and My First Tweet. Follow him on Twitter @HeyItsNoah.

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Blue Nile’s disruptive potential probably comes from its engineering of the classic competitive dilemma, coined “The Innovators Dilemma” by Clayton Christensen in his book by the same name. You force your competitors onto the horn of a dilemma. They can either run to protect themselves against one end of the horn, while exposing themselves to the other, or vice versa, but they cannot do both.

Last week I conducted a Webinar with Blue Nile’s CEO Diane Irvine and this strategy was discussed at length. For those of you who didn’t attend, you can listen to the recording by visiting http://www.kaihan.net/vpw_login.php?img=blue-nile.

To understand how Blue Nile forces its competitors to choose between two losing approaches, try to imagine yourself as the traditional competitor trying to compete with Blue Nile. You know Blue Nile is growing and is more profitable, in percentage terms, than you are. You have resources and a brand so you figure you should simply copy Blue Nile’s model. But as you think through your strategy you find the hard choices returning you to a strategy of inaction.

The first step, of course, is to sell diamonds online. You can easily figure out the technology, build the requisite customer service team, and sort out how you will plug into your inventory. But what type of diamonds should you sell–the high quality ones you offer in your stores or lower quality ones?

To complete with Blue Nile, you must choose to sell high quality diamonds because Blue Nile has cleverly chosen a premium positioning. As Blue Nile’s CEO Diane Irvine explained, “We’re not positioned as a discounter. We are selling a very high end product but selling it for much less. So I think of this as the smart way to shop and I think our business is made possible because of the Internet.”

Your next strategic choice is to decide how to price your online inventory. You can afford to sell these diamonds at a lower “online” price because your online business does not have to pay retail rent so your costs are lower. You could drop your prices while still holding up margins. But if you sell high quality diamonds, the same quality you sell in stores, for a lower price online, then you are communicating to your customers that you are overpricing your offline offerings.

While in some categories retailers can get away with this (e.g., you may expect to pay more for a book sold in Barnes & Noble than you would for the same book purchased on Barnes & Noble’s online store, www.bn.com) but diamonds are different. You become more price-sensitive when choosing a $7,000 diamond than when choosing a $14.95 book. And while you are willing to pay for the convenience of getting the book in your hands today rather than wait three days for online shipping, three days seems not long to wait for the diamond that will mark a major turning point in your life.

Indeed, as Blue Nile has found, many people find the in-store experience of diamond shopping to be less attractive than the low-pressure experience of shopping online. Sell your diamonds cheaper online and customers will stop buying in your stores.

Now that your options to sell high quality diamonds online have been exhausted, you explore the other option: selling lower quality diamonds online. Regardless of at what price you offer these low-quality diamonds, your strategy will be have little effect on Blue Nile’s continued expansion into your market because you’re aiming your online business at an entirely different market.

At the end of the exercise you must make a tough decision: do I sell cheap diamonds online or do I abandon any serious efforts to sell diamonds online? Blue Nile does not care which you choose because in either case you are choosing not to compete with them.

Because of Blue Nile’s engineering of the “two horn” strategy, the strategy known in the 36 Stratagems as “Besiege Wei to Rescue Zhao,” history shows it needs little else to deflect competition from traditional players. Entrenched incumbents face an impossible choice and so are moved to quietly observe Blue Nile’s progress.

But innovators must contend not just with existing competitors; they must also prepare themselves for future ones. An analysis of Blue Nile’s strategy shows they are building an additional competitive shield that, if skillfully assembled, could deflect would-be attackers for a considerable amount of time.

Ask yourself the questions below to see how you can create a strategy that your competitors can not compete with.

What do we do differently than our competitors?
How can we dive further into our niche and truly control that space?
What strategic choices can you make that your competitors, even the smart and well-funded ones, will choose not to copy?
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BP’s handling of the Deepwater Horizon disaster demonstrates a lack of understanding as to how technology has changed the consumer marketplace. Their PR efforts have effectively pitted traditional media (such as TV and newspaper ads) against social media (such as the Boycott BP page on Facebook that has received close to a million ‘Likes’ or the BP logo competition run by Greenpeace). Not only does this mean that their ad spend on traditional media is largely ineffectual, but it allows the negative conversations around their brand to continue unresolved.

If a brand wants to influence consumer opinion within this social ecosystem it must play by a set of rules seemingly foreign to BP–transparency, authenticity and accountability. Social networks allow people to bypass traditional media outlets, talk among themselves and come together around shared values. Ecological damage on such a historic scale tapped into our shared concern for the ocean, its marine life, and the planet we leave for our children, and so social media amplified consumer outrage around the world.

BP has responded with what seems like a never-ending flow of TV and full page newspaper ads. As the Wall Street Journal reports:

BP PLC spent more than $93 million on newspaper advertisements and TV spots in the weeks following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, paying out three times as much money on ads as it did during the same time last year, according to the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee.

BP also expanded the scope of its marketing efforts in newspapers during that time, running ads in 17 states–including Florida, Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi–up from just two states last year.

AdAge estimates that BP committed over $100 million on advertising to stem damage to its reputation. At its peak in June, this amounted to $3.59 million on Google search and video search ads alone, compared to a monthly average of $57,000 in the months before the disaster. The search and ad terms in question included ‘oil’ spill’, ‘leak’, ‘top kill’ and ‘live feed‘, as BP tried to outmaneuver people, reporters and law firms demanding answers from BP rather than accepting what they were being told.

BP cannot just advertise their way out of this problem. Not only has the ‘Beyond Petroleum’ strategy been exposed, but traditional media cannot penetrate online conversations driven by consumers that distrust or bypass it. The only way to change the tone of those conversations is to inspire consumers to shift it themselves.

Here’s my list of the top ten reasons why BP’s current approach won’t work. It’s list that exposes the heart and mind of an organization very different to the one described in its television and newspaper ads.

1. CYNICAL START–In late July 2000, BP launched a massive $200 million public relations and advertising campaign, complete with full color ads in magazines, introducing the company’s new slogan, ‘Beyond Petroleum’, and a yellow sun as its logo. It was widely criticized as ‘greenwashing’ and for co-opting the language and messaging of environmentalists.

2. LACK OF OVERSIGHT: Federal hearings into the cause and response to the disaster have exposed a systemic lack of oversight for key safety systems on deep-sea drilling rigs. BP and companies like it have effectively been left to police themselves and have demonstrated a consistent disregard for environmental safety.

3. DELAYED RESPONSE: BP has been widely criticized for its lack of preparedness, slow response in finding a solution to cap the leaking well, and for making it almost impossible for communities affected by the disaster to contact the company itself.

4. BUYING EXPERTS: BP did demonstate urgency in its rush to buy the silence or support of a team of marine experts that would take its side in court. Such actions communicated culpability in the minds of consumers more powerfully than any advertising.

5. DISTORTING TRUTH: From consistently downplaying the amount of oil flowing into the Gulf, to doctoring photographs, to buying up Google search terms related to the disaster, BP acted as if disclosure of the truth was yet another responsibility it could avoid.

6. PR FAUXPARTS: BP executed a series of well-documented PR mis-steps in its handling of the crisis, and ultimately BP CEO, Tony Hayward, proved to be the fall guy. While no one man is solely responsible for company or industry-wide practices, such PR failures demonstrate a lack of interest, awareness and empathy for the lives of the people and animals it affected. Just last week BP’s threatened to cut aid to victims of the spill if Congress prevents it from drilling offshore.

7. UNCHANGED INTENTIONS–BP’s announcement that it intended to continue to drill in the Gulf using deep-sea rigs that take even greater risks is more than untimely. It indicates a ‘business as usual’ attitude towards the drilling industry and its role in the disaster.

8. INDUSTRY UNCHECKED: As the New York Times reported, there have been three unrelated oil leaks in the same area since the Deepwater Horizon spill began. This speaks to an industry insufficiently regulated or consciously bypassing critical safety measures. It indicates a culture of negligence that undermines any assurances made by BP.

9. OUT OF SIGHT, TOP OF MIND–While BP poured an excessive amount of dispersants into the Gulf to reduce the “appearance “of oil, scientists assure us that it is there–specifically in the form of a 22-mile long plume – and not going away anytime soon. Such acknowledgements should be coming from BP that has instead turned its attention to pending court cases and new drilling opportunities.

10. TIMELESS TRUTH: According to the MIT Sloan Management Review, the negative effects of unethical behavior have a substantially greater impact on consumer willingness to pay than the positive effects of ethical behavior. The cumulative effects of 1-9 above mean that BP has to do something extraordinary to combat the long-term damage to its reputation.

A full page newspaper ad (or ten) does not disperse the damage done to the lives of fishermen and their surrounding communities devastated by the spill who are now struggling under the weight of consumer concerns over their catches. A TV ad (or ten) does not restore the generations of marine life lost, nor repair the damage done to the Gulf’s ecosystem. A search ad (or ten) does not change the mind of a single consumer unless BP fundamentally changes its behavior.

So what does BP do? Yes, it needs to institute the preventative, preparedness and response systems that would ensure a tragedy of this scale never happens again. But if BP truly wants to repair its reputation it must do some comparable in scale to the crisis it created. Something so captivating that it converts the communities of critics. Here’s an idea:

BP, announce to the world that you will become the caretaker for the ocean and marine life in each of the regions in which you operate.

This seems only fair. BP and its affiliates are the sole beneficiaries of billions in profit from the resources that these regions provide (a tidy $14 billion profit in 2009). BP could take just a small percentage of those enormous profits and partner with any number of ocean protection organizations that would jump at the chance to work with a BP that promotes rather than exploits the ocean. If it had done this earlier it could have saved the $40 billion (and rising) cost of the clean-up, not to mention all the misplaced advertising dollars they are yet to spend hoping to rebuild their reputation.

This expectation may appear optimistic, naive or even impossible to some. But its no more impossible than a BP hoping to win back public opinion without changing their motives, intentions or behavior.

Such a commitment would command attention. Demand it, in fact. Providing a meaningful action that matches the scale of the disaster, fast-tracking the reconstruction of their brand, and providing as systemic and sustainable solution as consistent as the profit-producing flow of oil itself. It would enlist social media in the service of the brand rather than against it. It would enable the brand to overwhelm the collective memories of online communities and not just repair the damage done to BP’s reputation by the disaster, but improve it forever.

Do that, BP, and ‘Beyond Petroleum’ would make sense. Do that, and this disaster will not have been for nothing. Do that, and you can cancel those expensive TV, newspaper or search ads. We’ll do your publicity for free. So will the next generation.

Reprinted from SimonMainwaring.com

Simon Mainwaring is a branding consultant, advertising creative director, blogger, and speaker. A former Nike creative at Wieden & Kennedy, Portland, and worldwide creative director for Motorola at Ogilvy, he now consults for brands and creative companies that are re-inventing their industries and enabling positive change. Follow him at SimonMainwaring.com or on Twitter @SimonMainwaring.

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Today, September 7th, is the official publication day of Good Boss, Bad Boss. I’ve got an hour or so before I need to run to the airport, and find myself looking back on what I’ve learned from writing the book, talking to people since the book was finished some months back, and all the blogging and comments (especially here at Work Matters and over at HBR Online where I have been developing my list of 12 Things Good Bosses Believe).

The thing I’ve been fretting over most lately is how hard it is to be a good boss–the job is never done, it is amazingly easy to screw-up, and wielding power over others makes it all even harder because you are being watched so closely (and are prone to tuning-out your followers–the other half of the toxic tandem). Yet, despite all these hurdles, the best evidence shows that many, if not most, people find their bosses to be competent and compassionate. And most bosses I know work extremely hard and are dedicated to improving their skills. Indeed, one of my main motivations for writing Good Boss, Bad Boss was that so many of the managers and executives who I spoke with and who wrote me in response to The No Asshole Rule were so concerned about becoming better at practicing their difficult craft.

When I think of the bosses that I admire and want to be around versus those that I despise and want to avoid if at all possible, the main factor is not their skill at the moment. Rather, it is whether or not they care and are working on core questions like:

1. What does it feel like to work for me?

2. How can get more “in tune” with my followers, peers, bosses, customers, and other people who I deal with?

3. What are my weaknesses and strengths? What can I do to attenuate my weaknesses–what do I need to learn and who can I work with to best offset my drawbacks and blind spots?

In contrast, people who are arrogant and suffering power poisoning–and never admit their weaknesses, let alone try to overcome or dampen them–are in my view, the worst of the worst, regardless of past accomplishments Yes, as I emphasize on this blog and in Chapter 2, the best bosses need to act like they are in charge, to instill confidence in others and themselves. But the bosses I want to be around (and that I believe will triumph in the long run) have the attitude of wisdom, or as rocker Tom Petty put it, are confident but not really sure.

That’s what I am thinking about; I would be curious to hear your perspective on the kinds of bosses you want to be and be around.

Reprinted from Work Matters

Robert I. Sutton, PhD is Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford. His latest book is Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best…and Survive the Worst. His previous book is The New York Times bestseller The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t. Follow him at twitter.com/work_matters.

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