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Could a Boston-based company called XL Hybrids help change the world (and the climate)?

XL Hybrids is a company out of Boston that, right there on their homepage, will promise a 20 percent reduction in urban fuel consumption. The business media is on board: Fast Company just had them as the third-most innovative energy company in… Continue Reading

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Could we be nearing the end of ‘death by PowerPoint?’ (Could PowerPoint itself be dying?)

Here’s a lame story by way of intro: last fall, when I was in my first semester of graduate school, I really wanted a gig at Microsoft. (News flash: I did not get one.) I heard that a recruiter from… Continue Reading

Beef is now $5.28/pound, the highest since 1987. Is that going to shift habits over the next decade?

Just in time for the summer grill-out season, beef prices are at their highest point since the late 1980s. And here’s the really good news! Everything that’s produced is being consumed, said Kevin Good, an analyst at CattleFax, a Colorado-based information… Continue Reading

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The shipping industry appears to be in trouble, environmentally and financially

I’ve seen Season 2 of The Wire — “dead girls in a can!” — which is about the extent of my knowledge on international shipping topics, but I do find it broadly interesting. You could argue (and many have) that shipping is… Continue Reading

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Can we learn anything from the most popular titles (short-term and long-term) on Harvard Business Review?

In some ways, Harvard Business Review is the gold standard of business-school-associated journalism. One of their former editors went on to found Fast Company (another great business magazine) and is now running for Governor of New Mexico. HBR dutifully tracks — as most publications do —… Continue Reading

Gird your loins: Brooklyn is now officially “Manhattan Part II”

See that chart? Egad. (Via here.) In early 2009, the difference between similar apartments in Manhattan and Brooklyn was $1,800 per month. Now it’s around $210 per month. Just a quick reminder of how urban areas develop / certain spots become… Continue Reading

New potential (logical?) use of social media: spotting disease/illness trends ahead of time

From here: “The big advantage of social media is you can get a lot more data, and you can get it more quickly and more economically,” said Henry Niman, a biomedical researcher and president of Pittsburgh-based Recombinomics Inc., which analyzes… Continue Reading

Urban sprawl and politics: Republicans tend to live in sprawling metros, and Democrats tend to live in compact ones

Here’s a new report (PDF) from Smart Growth America on the portions of America with the largest (and smallest) amount of sprawl. I’ll break it down for you quickly. The three parts of America with the most sprawl are: 1. Hickory/Lenoir/Morganton (NC) 2.… Continue Reading