Funny
“Irony”: High-level corporate strategy consultants need to review their business models to survive. The Financial Times article may be just a sign of worldwide corporate spending cuts, so don’t read too much into it, but the fact remains that the downturn is driving consolidation in what is already a relatively concentrated market (useful chart in the story).
OK, funny things first: Buffett playing Axl Rose is awesome. Less impressive is him playing a hip-hop artist, but it’s alright (both videos embedded inside). Viral videos can be a smart marketing tool, and these work. Back to seriousness: Business Week had a cover article by Alice “Snowball” Schroeder interviewing CEOs who have had Buffett in their boards. Interesting read.
We can’t resist repeating this funny story about change – and we suspect more than a few readers will relate to it. But ultimately this is about how feeble our attempts at forecasting really are. For some things we are way too pessimistic and tend to ignore the exponential aspects of some innovation curves. For others, we are way too optimistic. The trick then is to not rely on either.
David Pogue’s presentation at TED in 2006 was pretty funny and carried an important message for designers: simplicity sells. The iPhone wasn’t even out, but the trend is clearer than ever. The talk starts slowly but quickly builds momentum. As we always stress: view it critically, play with the idea, try to contradict it or apply it in some other field(s).
In this April 2002 classic, the investor education site Motley Fool pokes fun at the daily ramblings about why the market has behaved the way it has. People need to make sense of market activity and embrace the nuttiest explanations, so the joke almost rings true.
Your skeptic mind is keeping you away from the best cocktail parties? This TED talk by Dr. Shermer of Skeptic.com could be your ticket out of this conundrum. Actually, getting invited to TED would be your best shot, but we’ll settle for humor.
A joint venture between an acupuncturist and a voodoo priest. Total scalability with zero marginal costs!