At some point, a company’s organic reach on Facebook may hit zero

Back in March 2012, Facebook told brand managers that the organic reach of one of their posts would be about 16 percent of their total audience; if they paid for a post, that could get up to 75 percent. In reality, around… 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

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

Alex Hribal stabbing case: if you believe the media coverage wasn’t that major, why? Is it because the weapon was a knife or because there were no immediate deaths?

If you go to Huffington Post this morning — a liberal publication, one might argue — the PA stabbing story from yesterday isn’t even above the digital fold. It is on CNN, although it’s not the top story — that’s the search… Continue Reading

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Here’s a good quote regarding the length of the work week in a knowledge-based economy

From here, regarding Sweden contemplating a six-hour workday: As we transition to an economy dominated by knowledge workers rather than assembly-line workers, where productivity is more difficult to both measure and optimize, we haven’t yet figured out the best formula for maximizing output—something that,… Continue Reading

Brief thought exercise: do you find/believe that more people get promoted based on innate talent, personality, or ability to handle politics?

Toss out what you know/think/believe about performance reviews and the ascension of some to the manager level. Think about this one logically. If you’re going to get promoted, that ostensibly means (a) new (and broader) responsibilities and (b) possibly managing others (or… Continue Reading

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Could Smart Simplicity be the business model wave of the future?

Follow the bouncing ball here: 1. The Fortune 500 was created in 1955; since then, you can argue that the business environment is six times more competitive + complex than it was. 2. As the complexity of a business has increased, most management… Continue Reading