Carnival of the Capitalists
Welcome to the first Carnival of the Capitalists to be hosted here at Scatterbox, Field Notes from the Influence Economy.
This week: Ten bloggers with interesting, relevant takes on the world of business, enterprise and work. Most of the posts were submitted for consideration; the others I volunteered. My compliments and thanks to everyone involved:
NO, YOUR LOGO IS NOT THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU’VE GOT TO DO TODAY | Dane Carlson at Business Opportunities lists 20 ways that would-be entrepreneurs waste time and money when what they should be doing is proving they’ve got something that people will actually buy.
HE WOULD HAVE IGNORED HIM, TOO | Seth Godin says the story about the world-famous violinist who played in a subway station and was ignored by passing crowds just underscores how we all approach our day-to-day lives. And the amount of mail he got suggests that many of us are feeling bad about it.
PLEASE SIR MAY I HAVE ANOTHER | Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution wonders… if society became so wealthy that people didn’t need to work, would they be so bored they they’d pay to have a job? And what kind? (My guess is that most would want to be PR executives. It’s hard not to be attracted to the low expectations and high glamour.)
LITTLE BIG BUSINESS | Michelle Cramer at Great FX Business Cards notes how the US government is looking for new ways to fight global terrorism by studying the practices of successful small business.
CONVERSATIONAL WILDFIRES | Blogs can put real teeth in “word-of-mouth” marketing campaigns. Anita Campbell gives a personal example of how a fluffy little post spawned conversation that generated hundreds of thousands of exposures for her fine site, Small Business Trends. (Note to Anita: Your animated likeness is following me around the room. Kinda freaking me out.)
HEY! I’M A MOSTLY GREEN WHO WORKS BEST WITH MOSTLY BLUE, TOO! | Business Pundit’s Rob May argues that the only real value in testing employees for their personality traits comes from how it gets people talking about often touchy issues of company politics, dissension and teamwork.
IT’S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL | Leon Gettler takes World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz to task for lecturing Third World countries about the evils of corruption while he is embroiled in a scandal alleging that he gave his girlfriend a promotion with big pay increases. Gettler argues that this is evidence of a much deeper problem of political nepotism and cronyism that has thrown the entire institution into turmoil.
WALK AWAY BEFORE IT’S A BAD BOSS | Perhaps you’ve made the career decision to never again work for a psychotic, mean-spirited malcontent boss. I know I did, and now my hair smells terrific. Guy Kawasaki explains how to use LinkedIn to find references for a potential new employer, with great questions to ask them provided by Stanford professor Dr. Bob Sutton, author of The No Asshole Rule.
THE VALUE OF BEING THE PRETTIEST FISH IN A SMALL POND | Chris Harris suggests that recent research on how people make “buying” decisions at speed-dating events offers companies some relevant insights on how they should consider the context of their sales and marketing efforts.
SMILES, EVERYONE. SMILES. | Business Week blogger Stephen Baker visits a casino’s backroom security control center and comes away thinking he’s just previewed the coming “age of surveillance,” where even our most minute physical motions will be the subject of detailed scrutiny by governments and companies.
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ABOVE THE CLUTTER, VOL. 1 | And finally… Links to the original 25 posts included in the first Scatterbox compilation book. Above the Clutter is divided into three categories reflecting the themes I’ve been writing about since mid-2005: Issues and crisis management, corporate affairs and marketing in the age of transparency. (You can still download the free PDF-version book version here.)
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