Morning Advantage: The Limits of the Entrepreneurial Spirit
HBR.org 2012-08-03
The demise of Curt Schilling’s video game start-up, 38 Studios, as chronicled by Jason Schwartz in the August issue of Boston Magazine, reads like a Greek tragedy. It seems the company, which went under after it defaulted on a $75 million loan, had more management issues than Martin Luther had theses: nepotism, bad communication issues, high executive turnover. The list goes on. The biggest problem, former employees told Schwartz, was Schilling’s unwillingness to run 38 Studios like the startup that it was. Instead of starting small — say, in mobile gaming — he set his sights on MMOs, which is tech speak for huge games in which multiple gamers can play against each other online. Schilling failed, of course, and his story is a case study in the limits of grit. Schilling comes across as a sympathetic character at times, but his blind faith and stubbornness — the very characteristics that helped him in his baseball career — turned off potential investors, and certainly got the best of him in the business world.
Your Employees Don’t "Get" Your Brand (Gallup)
Only 41% of workers — selected at random from a wide range of industries — could state strongly what distinguishes their company’s brand from its competitors, according to a recent Gallup poll. More concerning are the 24% who basically shrugged their shoulders. There is good news, however, for folks in the packaged goods industry. Seven in ten of its employees were on message.The biggest losers in the bunch were the hospitality and healthcare industries, whose percentages dipped below fifty percent.
Why Public Transit Shouldn’t Sell Naming Rights (Boston Review)
“From the stygian gloom of New York subways to the retro interiors of the Bay Area’s BART trains, public transit appears to be declining as rapidly as the middle class,” warns Frank Pasquale. One way cash-strapped municipalities are trying to make do is by selling the naming rights to subway stations, and Pasquale isn’t happy about it. His gist: selling naming rights to public monuments will make us complacent about corporate malfeasance. He also asks where we'll draw the line. If subway stations are next, then what? A bit dystopian, yes, but Pasqaule is definitely right about one thing: it’s probably best if 2015 isn’t named the Year of the Depends Adult Undergarment.
It's Tom Brokaw's Fault
Are Boomers Screwing the Millennials? (Big Think) Long-term Unemployment: The Next Threat to the World Economy (Guardian) Emerging Power Crisis (Foreign Policy)