Morning Advantage: Meet the New Robber Barons
HBR.org 2012-07-03
They wield huge amounts of power and sit atop massive piles of cash. They steamroll through industries and competitors with little regard to the havoc they may cause. They track our every move and exploit our private lives for their public companies' gains. And we idolize them. Why are we so forgiving of the titans of tech, asks John Naughton in this provocative Guardian essay? "It's mainly because we accept these people at their own valuation...They see themselves as progressives, as folks who want to make the world a better, more efficient, more rational place," he writes. We're charmed by their corporate mantras — Google's "Don't be evil" or Facebook's "Move fast and break things." In their turtlenecks and jeans these modern moguls "don't seem to have anything in common with Rupert Murdoch or the grim-faced, silk-hatted capitalist bosses of old." And yet that is precisely the parallel Naughton draws. What gets lost in the reality distortion field, he says, is that today's digital barons are fanatically ambitious, competitive capitalists. "In the end these guys are in business not just to make money, but to establish sprawling, quasi-monopolistic commercial empires. And they will do whatever it takes to achieve those ambitions."
Rise of the State Capitalist (Bloomberg Businessweek)
It's easy to assume the rise of state-owned wealth funds would have a dampening effect on innovation; that government investors are more likely to fear disruptive influences than to promote them. Au contrare, notes Joshua Kurlantzick. Emerging powers such as Brazil — with the likes of regional-jet maker Embraer — and India have used the levers of state influence to promote innovation in critical sectors of their economies. And while state intervention may run counter to the conventional wisdom that the market knows best, there is a grand tradition of governments fostering groundbreaking companies, from Bell Labs in the U.S. to Airbus in Europe.
Unprompted Advice for the Service Desk (Forrester Blogs)
While it's not nearly as vicious as some frustrated service desk customers might like, Stephen Mann's blog delivers useful and pointed advice for the professionals who support corporate technology. To start, loosen up on the rules: "Don’t implement strict procedures whereby you will only deal with issues that are submitted as a ticket and confined to the service desk," he writes. Instead take in requests/incidents via every method of communication available and make yourself more widely accessible. "It’s about helping people work not following IT-created processes."
Shh, I'm Listening to Reason
Advice for Leaders: Hear and Be Heard (Columbia Ideas at Work) Your Succession Plan Is a Bust (Gallup Business Journal) The Value of Corporate-Sector Skills in the Social Sector (bcg.perspectives)