The Integrative Stream

The Carnival of the Capitalists

Welcome to the May 22nd Edition of the The Carnival of the Capitalists! For those visitors to the site who aren’t familiar, the the CoTC is a weekly roving roundup of the best business, investing and career management posts in the blogosphere, as nominated by the authors. Anyone blogging on business topics is eligible to participate. See the web site for more information.

For those who know the carnival but don’t know this blog, The Integrative Stream is a collection of short articles, links and general pondering from the perspective someone who’s been an independent consultant, CTO of a small software company and writer on technology issues, and is now in the middle of an MBA at MIT Sloan, on the principle of better late than never.

It’s been a lot of fun editing this week’s submissions. As per usual, most of the submitted posts have made the carnival. However, I did drop some posts which I felt lacked substantial original. A few blogs submitted every post for the week, and those got ignored too. For blogs which submitted too posts, I went with the one I found more interesting. The themes for the week seem to be international business ethics and network neutrality.

An Editor’s Choice doesn’t necessarily mean that I agree with the argument; but it does indicate that I respect the research and thought that went into the post and had some fun thinking about the issues. You might too.

Thanks for visiting, and don’t forget to check out next week’s host, Working Solo.

The Philosophy of Business

• Isaac Schrödinger defends Exploiting the Poor. Of course, it’s not that simple. Having grown up in Pakistan the author adds some first hand observations, and reminds the reader of some fundamental (classical and behavioural) economics.
• Starling David Hunter continues Email Conversation with an MBA Student at The Business of America is Business. Professor Hunter moved on from MIT Sloan right before I arrived at MIT Sloan. I wish he hadn’t.
• Wayne Hurlburt just thinks that good business ethics Change the World.

Managing

• Professor Steve Bainbridge takes an anthropological approach to Meetings and Dominance Rituals: Implications for Corporate Governance at ProfessorBainbridge.com. I was motivated to try to apply his analysis at my next meeting, so this one warrants an Editor’s Choice.
• In Predictably Unpredictable, Carmine Coyote of Slow Leadership takes a crack at the difficult issue of models. Computers make it easier than ever to gather vast quantities of information, but how much data is too much data?
• Michael Wade of ExecuPundit makes a case for why organizations need mavericks. A nice reality check if you get too worried about the occasional prima donna in the cubical farm.
• David Maister brings us Why Should I Help You? at Passion, People and Principles. It’s hard to be a supplicant, but most people can do a better job of it than they currently manage. Editor’s Choice.
• K T Cat at The Scratching Post suggests thinking about Process Improvement As a Current Liability. He (apparently, the author is a black and white tabby cat) is focusing on large-scale, corporate projects. It’s important to differentiate process improvement activities from process overhead, which can also be thought of as a current liability. What looks like overhead today can save your bacon tomorrow.
• A century ago, Frank Woolworth resorted to selling hammers disassembled — the head and handle separate — to maintain his promise that everything in the store was five or ten cents. From 1903 to 1970 Hershey shrank its chocolate bars 12 times to avoid crossing its own nickel price barriers as costs increased. What did they have in common? Constant values. Bob Pritchett suggests avoiding them, whether in software of strategy.

Public Policy

• On the Libertarian front, Brian Gongol has A Public Decision-Maker’s Checklist.
• Leon Gettler of Sox First writes about The SEC and the Jargon Maze. Plain english disclosures? It’s so crazy that it just might work. This is an issue close to my heart–and not just in regulated industries. Editor’s Choice.
• Jack Cluth at The People’s Republic of Seabrook raises important issues involving alligators.
• Tom Rants reviews reasons to mess with markets?.

Career and Employment

• Jacob Cazzell at SuccessMinders.com reminds you to Give value first. Paychecks will follow.
• Jack Yoest has 3 Questions for Your Prospective Boss.
• Mark at SportsBiz looks at the Psychic Income Appeal of playing for the WNBA.
• Brandon Peele at GT reflects on his time with a recent employer in SunTechnics & Me. There are some job search-and-selection lessons to be learned here.
• More ideas for personal growth from Adrian Savage.
• David Lorenzo suggests that you Be the Best.

Business of Technology

• Jon Kay at Centrist Coalition has Everything You Wanted to Know About Network Neutrality. Excellent analysis and an Editor’s Choice.
• cehwiedel at Kicking Over My Traces comments on Net Neutrality, in the context of providing access to telecom services.
• Barry Welford says that [ I’m Feeling Lucky ] Out | [ Search Blogs ] In. He means the buttons on the Google Home Page.
• Scott Milener at The Browster Blog laments the end of the New Economy in Supernova Party - Not Quite Like Its 1999. The other day I was in a meeting and CommerceNet came up. The operative quote from the conversation was “Wow, the last time I read about them it was in The Industry Standard.” The parties were just better back then.

Personal Finance & Personal Business

• Brian at Financial Reference looks at The Role of Financial Advisors. That’s the role they play now, not the role that they should play in the future.
• Need to get motivated? Todd suggests you Learn to make money by emulating people who make money.
• Josh Cohen at Multiple Mentality has Gas Price Tips
• David A. Porter advises that you Beware of Mortgage “Rescue” Firms.
• Dan Melson at Searchlight Crusade presents Real Estate Boycotts and the current state of the SF housing market.
• Steve Mertz writes about how good record keeping helped claim a pension from a previous employer. In this case, $29,871.63 worth. His story does nothing for my own packrat tendencies.
• Free Money Finance has a theory of How the Middle Class Can Get Back on Solid Financial Ground.
• Bob Vineyard reminds us that we have insurance Because Things Happen. A very good health economics point, as well. Insurance doesn’t just
  improve health outcomes after disease strikes - it can engender habits that make disease, or at least acute disease, less likely.
• A Samuel at New Homes Blog has
  5 rules to follow for buying an off-plan property.
• Paul at Paul’s Tips presents Ten good rules-of-thumb for investing.
• Nina Smith at Queercents talks about Team Effort. It’s not a good idea to leave financial leadership to just half the couple.

Impersonal Finance

• RJH Adams at Capital Chronicle presents Equity Markets: Crunched by Deteriorating Liquidity?
• nickel at fivecentnickel.com notes that Bankruptcy Filings are on the Rise
• Dominic Basulto at Business Innovation Insider tells us why My 500 is better than your 500
• Ed at Daily Dose of Optimism saw that Bill Miller is Down on Commodities and decided to take a closer look.
• Inflation may be on the rise, according to Barry Ritholtz of The Big Picture. And apparently folks are catching on..
• Econbrowser notes the dilemma posed for the Federal Reserve by this week’s data suggesting both an increase in inflation and a slowdown of real economic activity. Stagflation wasn’t much fun the last time. Editor’s Choice
• Chris Welch examines Cramer’s “Cyclical Investing and Trading” Chart at InvestorGeeks.
• frugal has some Ramblings on Illegal Immigrants, Globalization, and Inflationary Pictures at My 1st Million At 33.
• Joe Kristan looks at backdating stock options at TaxUpdateBlog.com/a>.
• Japanese Stocks Nose Dive, Japan ADRs & ETFs Next? from Steve Towns at ETF Investor.

Entrepreneurship

• Yaro Starak at Entrepreneur’s Journey provides a Paypal Review from the merchant’s perspective. The same author writes at Small Business Branding about How To Throw Away $500. Australian money, though.
• Dave Navarro has some coaching on 10 sepcific actions for a healthy, growing small business. Keeping normal business hours is something that I can heartily endorse from my own startup and consulting experiences.

Sales and Advertising

• Kevin Hillstrom at MineThatData describes the ‘Multi Channel’ Myth in direct marketing. He starts by positing that the direct marketing industry is in the middle of a strategic collapse, and builds from there. I read this one with great interest, as I’ve recently had the good fortune to hang around with some of the marketing models theorists and practioners here at MIT. Editor’s Choice, and bonus points if you can come up with a new business model for direct sales.
• Steve Mertz at Sales Presentation Training gives a Sales Presentation Tip-Don’t Waffle. Good advice.
• Jim Logan tells us why Your Full Service Real Estate Professional has wasted an opportunity.
• Steven Silvers of Scatterbox presents a PR conundrum: Army chief backs off of war documentary because it has all that pesky war stuff in it.
• Le Centre at Centrerion Canadian Politics explores an Ethical Dilemme[sic] Facing Google Adsense Publishers.
• Abnu presents Naming Restaurants Down There at Wordlab.

Office Life

• The oft-amusing Big Picture Guy at Big Picture, Small Office asks why financial summaries have to boring in The Long and Short of It. I’ve sat through a few of these. It’s also worth noting that BPG got this submission in right at the 3:00 cutoff for Blog posts. Why bother with leftover time before the deadline?