Buffett always likes a sweetener, and Burlington gives him one in the form of information. He learns about wallboard demand from USG and consumer-credit trends from American Express, but Rose has called the railroad a kaleidoscope of the economy. Rail traffic patterns are a window on commodity, wholesale, consumer, and international trade flows. Buffett is adding this kaleidoscope to what his other CEOs tell him about the “reset of the consumer” to a lower level of spending. They feed him data from Berkshire’s portfolio of companies—sales of building materials, jewelry, furniture, real estate, credit, fractional jets, vacuum cleaners, fabricated steel, newspaper ad lineage, and other products and services. He may now command as much information about the state of the U.S. economy as anyone, including the Federal Reserve—and probably gets his faster.
When CEOs Have Warren Buffett in Their Boardroom - BusinessWeek (via rickwebb)
reblogged from rickwebb
Over the last year or two, we have spent untold hours trying to document how we do things at the company. At first, it was this ridiculous futile exercise in documenting every process step and every decision moment. It was like going into the rabbit hole – deeper and deeper into arcana and control freakiness. Now, I’m thinking more about documenting our philosophies, our approach, and what we believe in. The general guidelines for tackling our problems. The general guidelines for stating what we believe in. I find that many of the challenges in maintaining quality work as you step back are rooted in people not knowing your guiding principles. How many other agencies do this, I wonder? How many agencies can stand up and say exactly what it is they believe in and what they are going for? This is something I think we could all be better at, and those that are successful at it are one more step down the path of successful everlasting agency life, I’ll wager.
“Why agencies need to make star quality routine” by Rick Webb
In Retrospect - Executives on How the AOL-Time Warner Merger Went So Wrong - NYTimes.com
fluffynotes:
MR. LEVIN I used to think at the time it was a clash of cultures and a misreading of the dot-com bubble, but I now upon reflection believe that the transaction was undone by the Internet itself.
I think it’s something that no one could have foreseen, and to this day, whether Apple is going to dominate entertainment or whether Amazon is going to dominate publishing, all the old business plans are out the window. How do you get paid for content? And the consumer has access to everything and now it’s going to be on a handheld device, so what I call the rolling thunder of the Internet started actually to eat its own, which was AOL. AOL was the Google of its time. It was how you got to the Internet, but it was using some old media business ideas that were undone by the Internet itself, and that’s why Google came along.
MR. PARSONS The business model sort of collapsed under us, and then finally this cultural matter. As I said, it was beyond certainly my abilities to figure out how to blend the old media and the new media culture. They were like different species, and in fact, they were species that were inherently at war.
In Retrospect - Executives on How the AOL-Time Warner Merger Went So Wrong - NYTimes.com
reblogged from fluffynotes
On days when workers have the sense they’re making headway in their jobs, or when they receive support that helps them overcome obstacles, their emotions are most positive and their drive to succeed is at its peak. On days when they feel they are spinning their wheels or encountering roadblocks to meaningful accomplishment, their moods and motivation are lowest.
Progress, not recognition or incentives, is what really motivates workers. “Breakthrough Ideas for 2010,” Harvard Business Review (via somethingchanged) (via fluffynotes)
reblogged from fluffynotes
If you consider what an economy consists of — organizations, laws, markets, banking systems, and so on — you realize that human beings have created an enormous system of means or arrangements to meet our needs. And then when you look closely at all of these arrangements, which have become enormously complicated, incredibly interlinked, hyper-communicative, and very much dependent on each other, you realize that they are made up of a huge panoply of technologies. I find this actually quite marvelous — that one of our primary accomplishments as human beings is to get ourselves organized to meet our needs, and we’ve done it in a brilliant way that’s evolved over centuries.
From this fascinating Booz & co interview with economist W. Brian Arthur.
There’s a sense of social Darwinism at play here and while it might sound overly dramatic, it is for better or for worse, true. In the new era of influence, those businesses that understand where and how to compete for the future will earn a genuine and advantageous position to shape and steer the perception, prominence, and impact of the brand. It is this idea of competing for attention where it is focused, as it evolves, that will help businesses connect with people and thus set a new, efficient, and effective foundation for advocacy and community.
Evolution of social media, by Brian Solis (via lanipauli)
reblogged from lanipauli
formspring.me
How do Web 2.0 platforms like formspring make money?
Mostly they don’t make money. Keep in mind that even Facebook didn’t turn cashflow-positive until last year and they have their own full-blown advertising platform running and a couple of hundred million users.
Most Web 2.0 startups keep themselves afloat with money from the founders, angel investors or VCs (or some combination of these). The idea is that once they achieve a certain scale, a viable ongoing commercial model will emerge. Or they plan to sell the business to someone else and let the new owners figure out the commercial model.
Some of them no doubt have a pretty clear idea what their commercial model will be right now but haven’t reached the scale needed to make it work yet. No doubt the smart guys & girls at Tumblr have a better long-term plan for making money than selling t-shirts.
Dear America: you can’t have an economy based on narcissism, good intentions, marketing, catering to rich bored people, really excellent webpages, and selling underpants on the internet. I’m afraid you’ll have to make something of value… I may as well prepare my emigration papers to Singapore, stat. Perhaps I can get a job for their Sovereign Wealth Fund. My job would be simple: buy stocks in nations which make stuff using paper money you get from nations whose main exports are Ivy League educated swindlers trying to sell baloney as a service.
Scott Locklin: “In which I stomp on some of our glorious “green shoots” (brilliant and insightful as always)
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