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Blogs Tip Gag Into Mainstream Media “Crisis” For FedEx

If you haven’t been following the FedEx Furniture guy, well here’s a good chronology of how a blog thing is just tipping from the blog world into mainstream media (becoming a story covered and to be covered on Headline News, ABC, NBC). Ignore it? Crisis? What’s the thought? Personally, I can’t wait for the Cast Away commercial with Tom Hanks and FedEx Furniture guy to smooth this all over. Hanks would have lived a lot more comfortably on the desert isle with some of FedEx Furniture guy’s stuff.

But seriously, this could be some of the cheapest advertising that FedEx has gotten in awhile.

Update (8/18/05): Bomb diffused very easily by FedEx (blog scoop by Jeremy Pepper). Via Steve Rubel.

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Deloitte Choses Not To Blog And To Go Public

I’ve blogged before about the absence of management consulting blogs. Well it looks like Deloitte is signaling that they will not enter this realm because of risk and lack of clarity on how to legally protect the firm, which is a partnership structure.

From Rob O’Neill at the Sydney Morning Herald (need to register to see full article):

Big four accounting firm Deloitte has put corporate blogging on the back-burner following robust internal discussions about the company’s online strategies.

A proposal to start corporate blogging on leadership issues was put forward by the firm’s director of digital marketing and communications, Ryf Quail. But senior partners were concerned about legally protecting the firm, which is bound by a partnership structure.

I would speculate that by going public on this matter, and since Deloitte is considered to be a market leader in the consulting space, this is signaling 1) to employees that online strategies are a serious matter but need to be addressed appropriately and 2) to competing firms that Deloitte is not moving on blogging (and thus, other firms may really want to follow suit [like car manufacturers do with price leadership strategies of rising prices in a oligopoly-like market structure]).

Hat tip on Deloitte article: Niall Cook.

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It Will Be Made In India

I just put up a post over at the CIO Weblog entitled, "OEM Software Supplier Balance To Shift Towards India". The shifts occuring with India have really peaked my interest from at least two areas: 1) how the changes will affect my children, and 2) how the changes will affect the business school communities.

Although it’s hard to read the tea leaves on this stuff, here’s a summary of some of the forces:

  • financial skills and other skills getting commoditized
  • offshoring to India growing
  • offshoring of business skills to India growing
  • offshoring of IT to India changing from offshoring to original manufacturing
  • lower, historical concentration of management skills in India
  • demand for MBAs in the US in decline
  • concentration of the best business schools remains in the US
  • US business schools under pressure (e.g., enrollment) and in decline
  • MBA want to do management
  • Signs of MBAs forgoing Wall Street for India internships (NY Times article)

To put light on the difference in demand, my sources tell me that MBA recruiting in India is very, very hot. As I understand it, MBAs go through an intense one day of recruiting, and at the end of that one day each person has 5-6 offers in hand. Compare that recruiting environment to the MBA environment for US students. No comparison.

So what are the opportunities? Probably any of the following:

  • Opening of satellite campuses for US b-schools in India
  • Maybe some entrepreneurs will start some new universities in India (like the venture when starting the INSEAD b-school)
  • Growth of executive housing and relocation services for India
  • High-end real estate targeted at international executives

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The Dark Side To Prosperity

My wife is quoted again (not nearly as extensively as the immediately prior post) by the DallasNews here (note that web registration is required [*]). While my wife did the interview some time ago, it is noteworthy to set some context that my wife is marketing professor, and she has a strong research interest in consumer behavior and self-control. This article does a good job of showing where people can lose self-control and get themselves in a bind.

[*] Also to introduce some people to technology they might not have used before, people can bypass compulsory web registration for many news sites by using BugMeNot.com. Please make sure that you check out the terms of service for legal use of the BugMeNot service. As with many of the emerging services on the Internet (e.g., peer-to-peer file sharing), the service can be used for both legal and illegal purposes. Be sure in what context you are using the service.

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A Case Example Of Where Pricing Changes Give Us Agita

My wife (Suzanne Shu) is quoted pretty extensively in an article in the Seattle Times by Drew DeSilver. The article is entitled, "Gas Pump Angst: Why Rising Price Riles Us Up". Nice job, Drew and Suzanne.

Update (8/15/05): I guess folks were pretty impressed with this article. I just learned that my wife has a TV spot on NBC this afternoon at 4:00pm.

Update (8/15/05): NBC link is here. Actually this aired on the 6:00pm news at the top of the hour.

Update (8/16/05): Two airings for my wife on the 5:00pm and 6:00pm news. Link is here for the next 21 days. Looks like you cannot view it in Firefox (only Internet Explorer).

Update (8/17/05): Another article with the Dallas Morning News stemming from the article here. Also, Bloomberg NY radio station did a live interview this morning. Don’t know if the audio is available online, but I may find out.

Update (9/2/05): Denver post article.

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Two Internet Stops For Information On Prediction Markets

For Friday, I thought I would highlight two blogs/sites that have been stopping points of mine for information on "prediction markets". At risk of botching the definition of "prediction markets", I will sidestep it a bit and say that my interest in the prediction market area stems from a few things:

  • organizational behavior theory
  • "wisdom of the crowds" concepts
  • free-market theory (espoused at the business school at the University of Chicago and other places heavily grounded in economic principles)
  • "some" overlap with Web 2.0.

A couple of prior posts of mine where I loosely touched on topics in the vicinity include a post on the Hot Hand Fund and a post on Maven Havens and del.icio.us.

But for more information on prediction markets, two stops people should visit are:

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Bud Gibson Update On Michigan (Ross) Business School Blogging Bootcamp

Bud Gibson has an impressive post that sums up the results of the blogging bootcamp at the Michigan Business School. Lots of good stuff in Bud’s post including some fine points on PageRanks and search engine optimization. Bud’s post opens with the following:

From May 10 through June 23, 2005, we ran the first High Octane Blogging Bootcamp for 33 MBAs at University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.  Our client for the bootcamp, Coach’s, served the Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, Michigan market for disaster cleaning and restoration services.  Recent surveys indicate that over seventy percent of consumers search the web when shopping locally for services such as Coach’s.  We wanted the bootcamp to demonstrate how Web 2.0
technologies like weblogs and RSS could help better establish a
company’s search presence to take advantage of this channel. To really
push the idea, we informally set a goal that bootcamp participants’
team weblogs outperform Coach’s site on searches for its own keywords.

Great alignment of consumer purchase process with effect of blogging on search engine optimization. Bud wraps up with a key implication of blogging (in the small business segment):

The bootcamp results demonstrate that with moderate but systematic
effort bloggers can achieve search visibility that outperforms
established local players for relevant searches.

Bud also gives some other plugs for blogging as an alternative to websites and traditional paid search:

Although I can’t say I’m an expert on the numerics associated with the first bullet point, I wonder whether this type of stuff is the sign of a fall of Web 1.0 Advertising Industrial Complex (re-adapting a phrase coined by Seth Godin). The mix of blogging, rise of blog readership, RSS ads, sponsored bloggers, sponsored posts, measurement tools, and auction markets are changing the landscape.

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Ivy League Dating

I’m opening my University of Chicago alumni magazine for an intellectual read, and I find this hillarious dating website in the classifieds, "The Right Stuff". The banner ad has text like:

  • " … membership in the Ivy League of Dating … "
  • "… date students, grads, faculty of the Ivies, Stanford, Caltech, U. of Chicago, and a few others …"

The close proximity of the words "date", "students", "grads", and "faculty" together sounds so naughty.

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