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.