I caught this article on Steve Jobs' "leaked" apology regarding MobileMe, which has apparently been struggling.
I thought it worth sharing, as the positive reviews it has received from the ever-skeptical blogosphere show how much people generally appreciate sincere apologies from companies that screw up.
Too bad in this case it had to be done through a supposedly "leaked" email. Oh, Apple.
I came across an interesting blog post the other day citing a study of CEO compensation practices in the UK post-2002. Go here - Truth on the Market Blog
Importantly, the study notes that levels of executive comp and growth rates in executive comp have not significantly changed since 2002, despite new legislation submitting executive comp to (non-binding) shareholder approval.
HOWEVER, the study did find that executive comp had become more sensitive to whether or a not a company posted a negative operating performance.
I'm slowly but surely working my way through War and Peace and read through a passage recently that struck me as unusually pertinent to the conversations that take place in this blog. I won't offer any commentary, but simply want to put it out there and see what people make of it.
The concentrated activity which had begun at the Emperor's headquarters in the morning and had started the whole movement that followed was like the first movement of the main wheel of a large tower clock. One wheel slowly moved, another was set in motion, and a third, and wheels began to revolve faster and faster, levers and cogwheels to work, chimes to play, figures to pop out, and the hands to advance with regular motion as a result of all that activity.
Just as in the mechanism of a clock, so in the mechanism of the military machine, an impulse once given leads to the final result; and just as indifferently quiescent till the moment when motion is transmitted to them are the parts of the mechanism which the impulse has not yet reached. Wheels creak on their axles as the cogs engage one another and the revolving pulleys whirr with the rapidity of their movement, but a neighboring wheel is as quiet and motionless as though it were prepared to remain so for a hundred years; but the moment comes when the lever catches it and obeying the impulse that wheel begins to creak and joins in the common motion the result and aim of which are beyond its ken.
Just as in a clock, the result of the complicated motion of innumerable wheels and pulleys is merely a slow and regular movement of the hands which show the time, so the result of all the complicated human activities of 160,000 Russians and French- all their passions, desires, remorse, humiliations, sufferings, outbursts of pride, fear, and enthusiasm- was only the loss of the battle of Austerlitz, the so-called battle of the three Emperors- that is to say, a slow movement of the hand on the dial of human history.
A friend of mine who teaches journalism at Harvard posted this video on Facebook the other day (a great testimony to the truths found in the video itself). I found it so compelling I wanted to share it with the rest of you.
My favorite line...
"If MySpace were a country... it would be the eight largest in the world."
If what's happening on the internet is any indication of the world to come, there is no doubt that our companies are falling way behind.
Africa has been on my mind a bit lately, in part due to a wonderful (though likely quite controversial) article from last month's Fast Company, which I finally got around to reading. The article touches on China's land grab on the African continent, telling a story that many will be fascinated to hear.
Certainly, part of the reason that China has been able to so aggressively go about acquiring raw materials from African countries is because of the relative lack of local industry in so many African countries. I'll be posting some more thoughts on this soon, as Hernando de Soto's book, The Mystery of Capital, sparked some thinking, but also wanted to share the following TED talk that makes a similar point, though it comes from a different direction.
Addendum:
I should also note that, according to the Fast Company article, part of the reason for China's aggressive move into Africa has to do with an entirely different talent management challenge than is being faced in most of the rest of the World. In China, the challenge isn't only producing enough skilled workers and managerial talent, it's also finding jobs for the millions of unskilled and unemployed that China is working to integrate into the country's middle class.
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