The Integrative Stream

The Carnival of the Capitalists

As part of my return to full time blogging (after my stint in the Federal government), it is my distinct pleasure to host this week’s edition of The Carnival of the Capitalists. For those who aren’t familiar, the Carnival is a roaming weekly roundup of some of the week’s best blog entries on the subject of business. Good CoTC posts focus on the economy, business strategy, and the practice of management. The carnival generally does not focus on personal finance or job hunting, and posts must be substantial and original – not just a link and comment on someone else, or even on the latest New York Times story. In recent weeks, the organizers have tightened up the inclusion criteria, and I’ve done my best to maintain the high standards that the previous hosts have set.

This week ten entries made the cut, about a third of the total submissions. The last time I did this, I marked a few posts as Editor’s Choice. Under the new, stricter editing rules, I have a few favorites, but they’re all worth reading, and unlike last time you won’t need to spend all morning doing it. Without further ado:

Hiring and Firing

Wally Bock at Three Star Leadership explores how A “War for Talent” mindset can be hazardous to your company. Just because some consultants wrote a book about something doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea. Culture matters, a lot.

Communications & Branding

Aloys Hosman debunks “brand value” in Google most valuable brand. So what?. For what it’s worth, I think he’s right about Google’s brand – but I’m not ready to write off the idea of independent brand value just yet. But brand equity is way too easy to overstate. Almost as easy as it is to destroy.

I enjoyed Josh Dorkin’s description of his logo design process at Time For Blogging. Logos are not the most important part of a business, and we’d all prefer to be judged by the content of our offerings rather than the color of our web sites (with deep apologies to Dr. Martin Luther King). But customers, floating in a sea of options, need all the help they can get.

If I hadn’t been hosting this week, I’d have submitted Good Healthcare CEO Blogs, Bad Healthcare CEO Blogs, in which I compared the blogs of three healthcare industry executives, all of whom have recently adopted blogging. I liked two of the blogs; the third blogger left a comment which triggered Healthcare CEO Blogs, Revisited. So please enjoy my take on what makes a CEO blog, and also an example of a healthy, effective response to criticism.

Entrepreneurship

Silicon Valley Blogger presents 6 Ways We’re Managing Our Finances and Our Emotions While Starting A Business at The Digerati Life. Starting a company is stressful, risky and time consuming, and it’s important to make sure the whole family understands what it means, and is ready to sign on.

Wayne Hurlbert talks about The value of mistakes at Blog Business World. This isn’t new advice, but it’s worth repeating, and Wayne does a nice job presenting the message. If you aren’t willing to make mistakes, you’re unlikely to get everywhere. The plan never survives contact with the enemy, and the business plan (almost) never survives contact with the customers.

You have to love a blog about laundromats, and you have to respect somebody who spends his vacation time touring other people’s laundromats. And some pricing lessons are universal. The Laundry Capitalist contributes Price Wise – Is your Laundromat Keeping Up with the Times? Hint for readers: it doesn’t have to be a laundromat.

Politics and Economics

Jack Yoest sat down with the Administrator of the US Government’s General Services Administration, and the result is a great post entitled How To Cut The Federal Budget at a Government Agency by Lurita Alexis Doan at Reasoned Audacity. A warning: the preamble is a little political, and I include the post without endorsement either way. The meat of the post is insightful and – speaking as a former employee of the Federal Government – spot on. I’ll likely comment on this post further later this week.

For Earth Day, Sean Hackbarth presents The Environment’s Best Friend: Economic Growth at The American Mind.

And the rest…

Tongue firmly in cheek, Ironman presents The Coming Global Trade Superstorm at Political Calculations. Those pesky polynomial expansion models. Actually, you can read this one two ways.

David Aron submitted Gliese 581c and Interstellar Capitalism at The Capitalist League. I had to include this one because of the line “alien societies may be genetically predisposed to socialism.”

That’s it for this week; thanks for visiting, and remember to tip your server. Next week’s edition will be at Race in the Workplace, and you can sign up for email announcements at The CoTC Home Page.

Healthcare CEO Blogs, Revisited

A few days ago I wrote a post on Healthcare CEO Blogs, in which I expressed my disappointment in Steve Case’s Revolution Manifesto blog at Revolution Health. My main complaint was that it simply wasn’t all that interesting, particularly compared to two of the other (arguably) most prominent CEO blogs in the healthcare area.

In this case, disappointment was a function of expectations. I heard Hillary Clinton speak at Yale shortly after she was elected to the Senate. I know she has interesting things to say – on the dynamics of Washington, if nothing else – but she was playing things safe and her speech was boring. My reaction to Case’s blog was similar. Here’s a very smart guy, who built one of the iconic late 20th century companies and is now taking on a very complex healthcare industry. That’s a recipe for interesting discussions, provided one has the time and inclination to go ahead with actually producing the content.

I was up in Boston for meetings much of this week, and when I finally got back to Washington yesterday morning I was somewhat surprised to see a comment from Steve Case. Even more surprising was that he concurred that the blog had been a little dull of late. He also confirmed that he did, in fact, write it himself, and fair’s fair, so I apologize for the insinuation that he didn’t. Reading my RSS feed this morning, I saw not one but two new entries in the blog–and they’re increasingly interesting. I’m not so hubristic as to actually take any credit for this, since with the launch of the Revolution Health web site I suspect he has some more time on his hands.

So what’s the wrap-up here? I’m not entirely sure. The response to my post was spot on, if not necessarily economically efficient given that I’m the definition of micro market media. I’m looking forward to reading Case’s blog over the next few months, and hopefully learning something. And my advice is to follow Levy and Baker’s examples: write about whatever is interesting, wherever you have a unique insight, and without obvious spin – better to admit you can’t write about something than to write about it disingenuously (not that I’ve observed such in this case). The combination builds traffic, but it also builds trust, and trust is a vital corporate asset, especially in healthcare.

Good Healthcare CEO Blogs, Bad Healthcare CEO Blogs

CEO blogs are arriving in the healthcare space. One of the best is by Paul Levy, at Running a Hospital. Levy is the CEO of the Beth Israel-Deaconess Medical Center here in Boston. The blog is informative, candid, well written, almost obsesively frequently updated, and has caused quite a stir in the Boston healthcare community. Another local CEO healthcare blogger is Charlie Baker of Harvard Pilgrim, one of the major Massachusetts health plans. He’s posted some interesting points about healthcare costs, and the discussions in the comments have been both high minded informative. I’ve met Baker in person, and he’s an engaging speaker on issues of healthcare cost; the blog is just as interesting.

Are Levy and Baker using their blogs to drive business to their respective organizations? Not really. Levy seems to be using his as much to drive change within his own hospital (and, perhaps incidentally, the wider Boston healthcare environment). I suspect the staff members appreciate his candor. Baker’s blog is newer, but people don’t make health insurance decisions based on the CEO of the health plan; it seems that what he’s trying to do is engage constructively with the larger healthcare policy debate.

I’ve learned a lot from reading those two blogs. I’ve learned nothing from Steve Case, who is trying to lead a “Revolution” at Revolution Health. He has a blog called “The Revolution Manifesto”, which contains the occasional announcement of new features and expressions of his pride in the team that’s built the web site. I’ve learned nothing from it in the several months that I’ve subscribed to the RSS feed. I’m by no means convinced that he’s actually writing it, and I certainly haven’t come away with any new insight into the healthcare industry or his company itself. If that’s your CEO blog – let alone your Manifesto – perhaps it’s better not to bother.

And I’m back!

Friday was my final day as an employee of the Federal Government. I never did hear back from the ethics department about what I could blog on – and not blog on – without approval, so I played it conservative over the last ten months and ended up blogging very little. While there are still a few areas I feel obligated to avoid (and you’ll have to wait for the autobiography to hear the tell-all bits), as of this week I’m going to start getting back to the blog on a regular basis.

To start with, on Monday I’ll be hosting The Carnival of the Capitalists. For a sneak peak, check out this week’s CoTC at The Geek Practioners Blog, then come back Monday for the finest in business blogging, as selected by me. And there’s more to come.

Cultural Context

Research indicates that cultural context is the key to reading facial expressions. Anybody who has tried to do business abroad has encountered this. What I didn’t realize is the extent to which this tendency extends to the Internet. Specifically, emoticons. The American “Happy” emoticon is (extra space to keep the blog from turning it into a pretty picture):


: )


Wherease in Japan:

^_^