Morning Advantage: After Steve Jobs, "A More Normal Company"
HBR.org 2012-05-29
Fortune scores the first big analysis of the Tim Cook era at Apple in this highly optimistic, profile of Steve Jobs' successor. The product plan looks great! Growth is ahead! Investors love him. Employees joke with him. One engineer even lingered on a coffee break with a friend, not feeling rushed to get back to work. Uh-oh… But the predictable personality gauging and Steve-never-woulda-done-that moments in the story take a back seat to the strong analysis of how Tim Cook may have been more responsible for Jobs' magic in the first place than anyone thought. He's the one who quietly transformed Apple's supply chain and brought unprecedented operational efficiencies, while strengthening its cash position. The question that's not answered here, and won't be for some time, is if Apple becomes a "normal company," an execution engine rather than a design-and-engineering engine, will the magic disappear?
The Coming Progressive Era (Oxford Analytica)
If history is a guide, then the ideological divide that plagues the American political system will reverse course soon. This Oxford Analytica analysis makes the case that a new Progressive Era is nigh by drawing parallels between political and economic conditions today with those of the late 19th century, the so-called Gilded Age. "In both cases...policies...facilitated a growing polarisation of wealth and ferociously polarised party politics." What reversed the course? "The growth of powerful reform movements, within both parties and across ideological boundaries." Republican Teddy Roosevelt was a primary force then. Who will be this time? Read this analysis if you're looking for hope, and to see just how eerily similar the turn of the 20th century is to the turn of the 21st.
WHILE THE BOYS FIGHT, THE GIRLS WIN
Where Women Have an Edge: Cyberspace (Cornell University Library)
This academic paper (PDF download) shows how women consistently outperform men in online gaming situations because of the way they organize their social networks. Analyzing an online gaming community, researchers have found that women accumulate more virtual wealth than men because they're more likely to focus on economic activity and less on violent activity. Female players are more likely to become friends with each other rather than form ties with men. Men are also more reluctant to attack women, even if the women have attacked them first.
Why the Euro Is Doomed
The Funniest Graph I've Ever Seen About Why the Euro Is Totally Doomed (The Atlantic) Scottish Independence Would Allow Economy to Grow (The Guardian) Etsy Seeks Scale without Losing Its 'Street Fair' Aesthetic (Knowledge@Wharton)