Michael Fitzgerald writes about innovation and other big ideas in business for publications like the New York Times, The Economist, Fast Company, Inc. and CIO. He’s worked as a writer or editor at Red Herring, ZDNet, TechTV and Computerworld, and has received numerous awards as a writer and editor. Most...
Slacker Manager has a weak post on telecommuting, 8 Tips on How to Work From Home: 28 Years of Experience, by David Zinger . It's really more like eight thoughts. Only two seem like tips to me -- the rest are observations or benefits based...
In a fun and mind-turning essay, Michael T. Kanazawa argues People Don't Hate Change, They Hate How You're Trying To Change Them It starts out with a cold slap in the face: "According to a summary of over 40 research studies on change, the success rate of...
The future of business will be dominated by freelancers who affiliate with each other on a temporary basis and rarely go into an office. Why should they? The network technology will be so advanced that the real world will be largely forgotten, thanks to virtual worlds built on top...
Perhaps because everyone knows there's no place like home, I was skeptical of Who's Your City? see The Future According to Richard Florida. Having now read it, I am impressed by author Richard Florida's ability to take massive amounts of...
Looking for the best place to build your high-tech business? Here's what The Milken Institute says in its 2008 State Technology and Science Index. The states in the best position to succeed in the technology-led information age are (2004 rankings in parentheses): Massachusetts...
With 60 percent of Americans now attending college, Richard Posner asks whether the number might go to 100 percent (don't snort; it wasn't even a century ago that most people didn't go to high school). At first, in his post on the boom in college education, he seems to think...
Slacker Manager has linked to a survey on whether people are given 'strength-training' at work; that is, are trained to improve their strengths and use them more often. The answer appears to be a resounding no. I say "appears" because the data seems based...
Should work make us happy? Hmm. I should say yes -- I write frequently about ideas suggesting workplace culture should be more encouraging and supportive than it often is. Most people spend the majority of their waking hours working, and work shouldn't be a depressing...
Business thinkers may want to skip the second part of "The Big Switch." It's learned and interesting, but not very much about business -- at least, in the short term. In the long term, his speculative logic changes everything about society. The Universal Computer that will emerge from...
Having fun outside of the office boosts productivity. Or so argues the blog Chief Happiness Officer, which suggests that companies would improve productivity by giving employees a fun day -- an extra day off and a little bit of money to go do something fun. To ensure that it's...
I've stirred the pot with my post Sink or Swim Business, which looks at some of the management ideas of Ralph Sink. While I note several of his comments, the incendiary part of the post seems to be my opening line, which includes the words "fire all the managers." ...
I'm interested in how people come up with ideas. That's one reason why I reviewed Bernd Schmidt's book "Big Think" (see How To Build Bernd Schmitt's Trojan Horse). So I was eager to read The Road To Eureka! subscription required, a piece in Science News on...
M.B.A. programs in America seem to be in excellent shape -- demand is high, with more than 130,000 people shelling out tens of thousands of dollars each to get an MBA (tuition alone at Harvard Business School is $41,900 for the 2007-2008 academic year). Many graduates of the best schools...
The blog Curious Cat posted Do corporations exist solely to maximize their bottom lines? We don't think so, a post that drew from a Forbes article looking at the history of efforts to create socially conscious companies. In fact, most companies follow a shifting strategy towards profits -- many...
 Rob May's sign-off post at the businesspundit blog features the 10 things he's changed his mind about in five years of running -- and blogging about -- a business. His Number 10: Luck matters. Five years ago, I would have said success was mostly skill and...
The uber consultants at McKinsey's Technology Initiative have published their first Perspectives volume, seven pieces on the major trends the firm sees emerging. I'll highlight the first piece here more later on the rest. It's called Eight business technology trends to watch free registration required, but these...
The lists of the best business books of 2007 are coming thick and fast now. Here are some of the highlights: Stanford Engineering professor Tom Kosnik has an updated, annotated list of business books, with his favorites highlighted in green. Kosnik's list. Amazon's best...
In the first two parts of his "Future of Management," Gary Hamel has been a witty, engaging visionary, beguiling and impressing managers into thinking they must change (indeed, I find myself randomly rethinking my own approaches to problematic issues here at Fitzgerald Enterprises). In part three, the...
Books matter, but they don't make much of a business. Never have, really. But its problems provide useful insights for any business struggling to find its way in the new digital world, as we see in Have We Reached the End of Book Publishing As We Know It? an entertaining...
Wall Street's next set of big numbers look like layoffs, and unemployment in the broader economy was already on the rise. Here are three things you can do to save your job: Act like you're a survivor Give your leaders hope Be a good corporate...
Michael Fitzgerald writes about innovation and other big ideas in business for publications like the New York Times, The Economist, Fast Company, Inc. and CIO. He’s worked as a writer or editor at Red Herring, ZDNet, TechTV and Computerworld, and has received numerous awards as a writer and editor. Most...
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