Friday, April 30, 2010

McKinsey: Social Sector Office

McKinsey and Company is expanding into the social business and entrepreneurial sector. My personal favorite the Social Sector Office is the Economic Development practice. While you are there, check out the Jonathan Morduch et al. article about world's unbanked population.

If you read blogs, which out the McKinsey What Matters blog -- and the feature on social entrepreneurship. (Thanks, Gloria)

The Cost Conundrum

What a Texas town can teach us about health care in the New Yorker. If you have the time, it is worth the read. (Thanks, Josh)

Kitty


(Thanks, Chrissy)

Chicken


Doug Zongker's "Chicken chicken chicken". Presented at the AAAS humor session, February 16, 2007. See http://isotropic.org/papers/chicken.pdf for a PDF. (Thanks, Josh)

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

A recent MIT grad and BCG consultant writes mini-memoirs

Keith Yost writes a series of four honest, and at times scathing, pieces on his past year in the BCG Dubai office. He reflects:
Seven months in the Middle East had taught me only one lesson: Even in the best of circumstances, business consulting can be a morally ambiguous and soul-crushing profession.
You can read his series here, here, here, and here (in order).

Startups: An "Alpha Male Pissing-Contest?"

Read the FastCompany Article here.

Will Smart Contact Lenses Be the Bluetooth Headsets of the Future?

Read the FastCompany article here.

What the iPad Is Missing (No, It's Not a Camera)

Any guesses?
I'm not an iPad naysayer. I forked over $700 on the first day of pre-ordering and my iPad hasn't left my side, day or night, since it arrived. I'm with those who see the device and its new approach to computing as an exciting step forward, especially for media delivery. The possibilities for reviving the magazine and newspaper industries are exciting and real.

Yet it's exactly that part of media consumption, reading, that reveals what's missing on the iPad: good typography.

Signs that type took a backseat in the iPad's development were clear back in January when Steve Jobs demoed the device, revealing just four uninspired and uninformed font options in iBooks...
Read the rest of the FastCompany article here. Check out the ClearType For All blog here.

Infographic of the Day: How to Pick the Perfect Typeface

FastCompany presents the coolest font/typography flow-chart ever.

There's A Little Calvin in Every Child

Check out the site here.

The Axis of Awesome 4 Chords



Thanks, Rish!

We Have Met the Enemy and He Is PowerPoint

Read about "death by powerpoint" in the military here.

What Colors Mean Across 10 Cultures

Read the FastCompany article here.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Women, Work and a Name Change

Apparently my thesis is a hot topic right now:
Women who choose to adopt their husbands’ surnames may be penalized in the job market, a new study from the Netherlands suggests.
Read the rest of the NYT article here (and it was written by an Andover alum!).

Her Husband's Last Name: Does a Woman's Identity Change, Too?

Here's an intro the female surnames (my thesis topic!):
Hey gals, it's wedding season and women everywhere will be making one of the most important choices of their lives: not "I Do," that's easy. The difficult question is whether to change your name. Want to honor your new spouse's lineage? Studies suggest that perhaps you should reconsider. It seems that what name you use affects how others perceive you. Does our identity change along with our name? With the stroke of a pen, do we, along with the surname of our new husbands, suddenly take on a new persona? Some people think so.
Read the rest of the article here.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Eyjafjallajökull fail

How do you pronounce Eyjafjallajökull? (Thanks, Lucy)

Cartoon: A Day in the life of an anaylst

A former analyst a a big bank created a video about his life. Here is a preview:
Analyst: "I just spent all night working on the model you said you needed for today."

Director/Associate: "Don't worry about that - I never needed that."

Analyst: "Thank you."
Here is the video. Watch it! It's so worth it. (Thanks, Lucy)

The Victorian Expansion into Asia...

A funny article written about a student's time in Singapore.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Redeemer Presbyterian Church in NYC

I've heard that Redeemer Presbyterian Church in NYC, which is lead by Tim Kelleher, has a strong community of entrepreneurs and VCs. Send me links if you have any stories on it! Here is the church website.

Houston Lemonade Day

How do you train young people and children to be entrepreneurs? In Houston, they create a city-wide Lemonade Day. (And they are thinking about expanding to Durham!)

The Acton Foundation

Is there a toolbox for entrepreneurs? Learn more at the Action Foundation here.

Durham, a Tobacco Town, Turns to Local Food

Durham was featured as a Foodie town in the NYT! Check out the article here. (Thanks, Dad)

Investigating the Pay Gap

Flip through the HBR slides here. Slide 6 was one of the most startling. (Thanks, Freed)

Nike’s Women Problem

Here's a question posed by Timothy Egan:
Is there anything creepier than a big, beer-breathed celebrity athlete exposing himself in a night club and hitting on underage girls, all the while protected by an entourage of off-duty cops? Well, yes. It’s the big, corporate sponsor — Nike, in this case — that continues trying to sell product with the creep as their role model.
Read the rest of the NYT article here. (Thanks, Dad)

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Web Coupons Know Lots About You, and They Tell

This feels like a privacy invasion:
For decades, shoppers have taken advantage of coupons. Now, the coupons are taking advantage of the shoppers.

A new breed of coupon, printed from the Internet or sent to mobile phones, is packed with information about the customer who uses it. While the coupons look standard, their bar codes can be loaded with a startling amount of data, including identification about the customer, Internet address, Facebook page information and even the search terms the customer used to find the coupon in the first place...
Read the rest of the article here.

Britney Spears bravely agrees to release un-airbrushed images of herself next to the digitally-altered versions

She wants to encourage support for real female bodies. Very cool/brave. Check out the Daily Mail pics and article here.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Blondes paid more than other women

"They have a reputation for being long on looks and short on intelligence but blondes are actually paid more than other women." Read the Telegraph article here.

Poll Finds Tea Party Anger Rooted in Issues of Class

Who are the new "Tea Party" supporters?
Tea party supporters are wealthier and more well-educated than the general public, tend to be Republican, white, male, and married, and their strong opposition to the Obama administration is more rooted in political ideology than anxiety about their personal economic situation, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll...
Read more in the NYT here.

Golfing... from a cliff


Thanks Rish!

Sunday, April 11, 2010

How to Lie Without Statistics

Greg Mankiw wrote another insightful piece about Parade Magazine's "Annual Salary Survey."
By my count, about 14 percent of the people in Parade's sample earn more than $1 million a year. In the real world, the actual percentage is about 0.2 percent. So, in a truly representative sample of a hundred people, you would most likely have zero, or perhaps one, person with a million dollar income. Finding two would be highly unlikely. 14 would be nearly impossible.

Does this matter? I think it might. There is a common perception in some circles that we can solve all our fiscal problems if only we were willing to tax the rich some more. Yet, in reality, there are not enough rich for this to work. By presenting such a skewed cross-section of incomes, Parade inadvertently feeds an all-too-common misperception.

The Enormity of the Fiscal Gap

Greg Mankiw found an article that describes strikingly our financial position:
A study we conducted at the Tax Policy Center found that Washington would have to raise [income] taxes by almost 40 percent to reduce -- not eliminate, just reduce -- the deficit to 3 percent of our GDP, the 2015 goal the Obama administration set in its 2011 budget. That tax boost would mean the lowest income tax rate would jump from 10 to nearly 14 percent, and the top rate from 35 to 48 percent.

What if we raised taxes only on families with couples making more than $250,000 a year and on individuals making more than $200,000? The top two income tax rates would have to more than double, with the top rate hitting almost 77 percent, to get the deficit down to 3 percent of GDP.

Alexander Ovechkin, the Mad Russian

Read the NYT expose here. (Nice jersey Ovi)

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Using Legos to Explain the World's Toughest Challenge, in the Next Fifty Years


"Dr. Hans Rosling is a legendary TED presenter: He's appeared there a half-dozen times, using stats in ingenious ways to dispel common myths about the developing world. A professor at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, he's got a way of making complex forces intuitive, in stunningly short order, using infographics." Read the FastCompany post here.

Why did Coach K tell Zoubek to miss the second free throw?

"So, the question becomes whether the odds of winning are better if you intentionally miss the second free throw, but hit the rim, the opposition gets the rebound, gets off an uncontested shot from beyond half court and makes it… OR… you foul leading by three, the opposition hits their first free throw, intentionally misses the second, gets the rebound, and puts it back in and goes on to win in OT. Both are extremely unlikely. However…"
Read two theories here and here. (Thanks, Nikhil)

The Girl Effect

Check out the website here.

Made To Stick: Presentations That Stick

Read the Fast Company article here.

People who photograph bood and display the pictures online

Read the NYT article here. (Thanks, Eliot)

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Helping Patients Face Death, She Fought to Live

LAST MOMENTS Robert Pardi Jr. in the apartment he shared with his wife,
who died in his arms. “I would have loved to say goodbye,” he said.


"Dr. Desiree Pardi, a leading practitioner in palliative care, counseled patients about accepting death, until cancer spread in her body, and she chose to fight it." Read the NYT article here.

Silencing Critics, Duke Routs West Virginia and Reaches Title Game

So proud.

Friday, April 2, 2010

A marketer’s guide to behavioral economics

"Marketers have been applying behavioral economics—often unknowingly—for years. A more systematic approach can unlock significant value." Read the McKinsey Quarterly article here.

Russia Says Suicide Bomber Was Militant’s Widow

Description of the Russian train bomber:
Baby-faced, she looks barely a teenager. But the pistol she is holding in the photo suggests the violent destiny that she would choose: blowing herself up in a subway station in Moscow during the morning rush on Monday.

And posing with his arm around this 17-year-old girl is the man who would put her on this path, a 30-year-old militant leader who lured her from her single mother, drew her into fundamentalist Islam and married her. He was killed by federal forces in December, spurring her to seek revenge...
Seventeen and married? Notice how differently the two are dressed. Read the rest of the NYT article here.

Does Wall Street Need an Estrogen Injection?

A man's perspective in the NYT. (Thanks, Dad)

Coca-Cola "Happiness Machine"


(Thanks, Mom)

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Jim Collins, author of Good to Great


Check out the BusinessWeek article here.

Typeface Inspired by Comic Books Has Become a Font of Ill Will

Hmmm:
Vincent Connare designed the ubiquitous, bubbly Comic Sans typeface, but he sympathizes with the world-wide movement to ban it...
For all of the typophiles out there, read the WSJ article here. (Thanks, Cassie)

Completely valid rebuttals


Check out the Passive Aggressive notes here. (Thanks, Cassie)

Why Women Aren’t C.E.O.s, According to Women Who Almost Were

"It’s not a pipeline problem. It’s about loneliness, competition and deeply rooted barriers." Read more in the NYT .