News You Can Use: 12/19/2018

  • American Entrepreneurs Who Flocked to China Are Heading Home, Disillusioned

    Now disillusion has set in, fed by soaring costs, creeping taxation, tightening political control and capricious regulation that makes it ever tougher to maneuver the market and fend off new domestic competitors. All these signal to expat business owners their best days were in the past.

    The Trump administration is making a hard-nosed challenge to China using trade tariffs, investment controls and prosecution of technology thieves, and many in American business are cheering, if silently, having soured on the market after years of trying.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/american-entrepreneurs-who-flocked-to-china-are-heading-home-disillusioned-1544197068?ns=prod/accounts-wsj

  • 24 Amazon Workers Hospitalized After Robot Punctures Bear Spray In Warehouse

    One worker was in critical condition, ABC News reported, and 30 more were sickened and treated on the scene. The primary cause for hospitalization was difficulty breathing, according to NBC New York. Bear spray contains concentrated capsaicin, the primary ingredient in pepper spray for humans.

    Robbinsville town spokespeople initially said that a can of bear spray had fallen off of the shelf in the Amazon fulfillment center, NBC New York reported, but officials later said that the cause of the accident was a robot.

    An investigation revealed that “an automated machine accidentally punctured a nine-ounce bear repellent can, releasing concentrated capsaicin,” Robbinsville public information officer John Nalbone told ABC News. It’s unclear how the incident occurred.

    https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/qvqe85/24-amazon-workers-hospitalized-after-robot-punctures-bear-spray-in-warehouse

  • The opioid crisis is profitable. Blockchain tech can end that
  • The limits of coworking

    So why is everyone trying to turn your favorite neighborhood dinner spot into a part-time WeWork in the first place? Co-working offers a particularly compelling use case for under-utilized space.

    First, co-working falls under the same general commercial zoning categories as most independent businesses and very little additional infrastructure – outside of a few extra power outlets and some decent WiFi – is required to turn a space into an effective replacement for the often crowded and distracting coffee shops used by price-sensitive, lean, remote, or nomadic workers that make up a growing portion of the workforce.

    Thus, businesses can list their space at little-to-no cost, without having to deal with structural layout changes that are more likely to arise when dealing with pop-up solutions or event rentals.

    https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/15/the-limits-of-coworking/

  • Foxconn and the village: the $10B factory deal that turned one small Wisconsin town upside down

    I think that they were basing a lot of the deal on assumptions. When you ask them, “Hey, the size of this incentive package that you’re offering is so very large, and you have a village whose budget is usually between $18 to $20 million, and you guys are offering an incentive package of $760 million, something you have to change is the state law to allow the village to do because it’s considered beyond the prudent borrowing ratio.” They say it was justified because the size of the deal was so large.

    Meaning, Foxconn is offering them $10 billion, which is so much money, and so we obviously had to come back with an equally sweet deal to get them here. I mean, the problem with that is, when you talk to people who study Foxconn, or you just look at the way Foxconn has operated in other countries, is that they often come with a very large deal, and they walk back the deal to a place that seems comfortable for them.

    https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/6/18128133/foxconn-deal-wisconsin-factory-mount-pleasant-trump-reply-all-sruthi-pinnamaneni

Photo by Mimi Thian on Unsplash

News You Can Use: 2/22/2017

  • Trump eyes end to an H-1B system that favors largest outsourcers

    The H-1B lottery favors large firms. In the 2015 fiscal year, for instance, the top 10 firms received 38% of all the H-1B visas in computer occupations alone. All these firms, except for Amazon and to a partial extent IBM, are outsourcers. These large companies have the resources to submit enough visa applications to help ensure they receive a bare minimum of approvals.

    Also

    Instead, the Trump administration is hinting at changes that may end the random lottery distribution and replace it with a merit system. It could distribute visas based on wages or whether a visa holder was educated in the U.S. It could favor non-dependent H-1B companies — a legal definition for firms that have less than 15% of their staff on the visa — over dependent firms, which includes all the all the large offshore firms.

    http://www.computerworld.com/article/3167586/it-outsourcing/trump-eyes-end-to-an-h-1b-system-that-favors-largest-outsourcers.html
    H-1B advocate Sen. Orrin Hatch sets stage for new visa battle

    Among Hatch’s proposals are capping the number of visas any single employer can apply for, and requiring employers to attest that they first tried to hire an American worker. He also proposed something called a “shot clock” rule that will revoke a visa if it isn’t used within a certain period of time.

    http://www.computerworld.com/article/3171151/it-careers/h-1b-advocate-sen-orrin-hatch-sets-stage-for-new-visa-battle.html

  • To pay or not to pay: Too many victims say yes to ransomware

    According to the FBI, the collective amount of ransoms paid in all of 2015 in the US was $24 million. In 2016, it had jumped to $209 million in just the first three months – which means if the growth curve continued it would easily have topped $1 billion by the end of the year.

    http://www.csoonline.com/article/3168931/data-breach/to-pay-or-not-to-pay-too-many-victims-say-yes-to-ransomware.html

  • Preparing Our Economy for the Impact of Automation & AI
  • Why Office Perks Are Traps, Not Benefits

    Is it any wonder, then, that the “benefits” at so many companies aren’t benefits at all, but ploys to get you to work longer? Dry cleaning and laundry services available on-site? Great — now you can put in a few more hours a week, because your clothes will be cleaned for you. Free pizza for the long hours you put in on that important project on Friday? Fantastic — no lunch break, meaning more work we can extract from you. These so-called perks, in other words, tend to be Trojan Horses. While you’re chewing away on pizza and having your laundry delivered to your office, the company and its leaders are smiling because you are still in your office.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/289056
    Interesting context for the last SourceCast Episode (59)

  • Why Coworking Isn’t Just a Rented Desk

    If you are not creating value for your customers, then stop what you are doing. We create value at Alley by offering massively discounted services for each and every one of our members. Most of our members are emerging startups and they need help, so we created a platform to help them grow. These services have been vetted, and all of the services we offer are from our members. You basically live with them, next door to your accountants or insurance providers. We also have direct links into investor relationships. We partner with firms such as ERA and Techstars to give the companies exposure. This is great deal flow for investment firms and this is wonderful for our members who need to raise money. I am proud to say that since our inception Alley companies have raised over 1 Billion in funding based on our last studies. This year, two of our companies have made it into the elite accelerator, Y Combinator.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/289129

Photo: Redd Angelo

News You Can Use: 11/2/2016

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  • New Comcast data caps spotlight disturbing trend

    Data caps are becoming the norm, and that’s very bad news for consumers, who increasingly choose to stream video instead of paying exorbitant fees for pay TV. No other reason exists to impose such caps than the desire to increase profits. Here’s how Comcast justifies its data caps: “Our data plans are based on a principle of fairness. Those who use more Internet data, pay more. And those who use less Internet data, pay less.”

    Sounds fair … except it isn’t true. Unlike wireless providers, broadband ISPs have capacity to spare, and Comcast admits as much. In a memo leaked last year, Comcast told its sales people that data caps were not related to network congestion.

    http://www.cio.com/article/3128922/internet-service-providers/new-comcast-data-caps-spotlight-disturbing-trend.html

  • How a 100TB hard drive works:
  • How To Tell Your Boss You’re Completely Overwhelmed

    Feeling like you’re personally contributing, connecting with others, leveraging your creativity—or whatever your role means to you—is an anchor for the work you do. It’s why you do what you do. Without personal meaning, you’ll start to wear down from relentlessly throwing yourself into the churn and pulse of things. You can’t sustain this kind of disconnected, meaningless work for very long.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/3064498/work-smart/how-to-tell-your-boss-youre-completely-overwhelmed

  • Are We Solving the Right Problem with Supplier Risk Management?

    An agile supply chain means that you can be reliable even though an increasing number of things are going wrong. You can only do this if you can avoid those things in the first place or recover from them when they happen. Either way, this requires supply chain risk management, not just supplier risk management, and certainly not just supplier viability management via financial statement monitoring.

    http://spendmatters.com/2016/10/10/solving-right-problem-with-supplier-risk-management/
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  • A Tour of WeWork’s New Coworking Space in Philadelphia

    The office space is just minutes away from the Old City District, the home of Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, and many other historical landmarks. The Market-Frankford Line has a stop on Girard Avenue, a five-minute walk from the office. There’s also a parking lot located diagonally across the street. Attracting a wide range of businesses, this Philadelphia office space is a great option for artists, designers, and other young entrepreneurs, as well as corporations looking for a local base of operations”, says WeWork

    http://www.officelovin.com/2016/10/10/tour-weworks-new-philadelphia-coworking-space/
    Philly getting some co-lo love…

Photo: Chirobocea Nicu

News You Can Use: 8/10/2016

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  • The Scientific Reason Why Coworking May Be The Future Of Work

    It turns out that coworking spaces’ hallmarks—like funky design features—are far less important than their social structures, where workers feel a sense of individual autonomy that’s still linked to a sense of collaboration, the Michigan team told me in interviews. Most coworking spaces, for all their variation, tend to strike that careful balance between those crucial needs—in ways that neither solo freelancing nor the traditional office experience usually provide.

    http://www.fastcompany.com/3061515/the-scientific-reason-why-coworking-may-be-the-future-of-work

  • When You Fix Problems With Mid-Level Managers You Fix Everything

    But when executive leaders take the time to communicate with mid-level managers regularly, performance and satisfaction improve, a 2016 survey of millennials conducted by Gallup suggests. Among those who said their manager holds regular meetings with them, 44 percent said they are engaged, compared with just 20 percent of those who don’t meet with managers regularly.

    The solution is simple — facilitate consistent communication between mid-level and senior managers to keep middle leadership in the loop, consider their ideas, and listen to any problems or concerns they have.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/279058
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  • Most CEOs are planning to kill their companies

    Two thirds of CEOs don’t think their companies can keep up. The actual question focused on the fact that CEOs are focused on innovating through acquisition rather than organically. But the translation is they have no confidence in their organization’s ability to innovate. This is a significant problem for every employee because it implies the CEOs feel a large portion of their firms are unwilling or unable to perform. Acquisitions should be the exception not the rule, yet the opposite appears to be true. Now it is unlikely that 75 percent of firms can’t execute so this is likely a blend of CEOs not understanding what is being done and organizations that are being restricted by policy, culture, or practices (like Forced Ranking, which kills innovation). But it certainly doesn’t bode well for job security.

    http://www.cio.com/article/3096091/leadership-management/most-ceos-are-planning-to-kill-their-companies.html

  • On that note: Top-paid CEOs aren’t very good at their jobs

    The authors, who studied 429 large U.S. companies over a 10-year period, summarized their findings this way: “Has CEO pay reflected long-term stock performance? In a word, no.”

    The report found that average shareholder returns over the decade were 39% higher when a company’s CEO was in the bottom 20% of earners compared to a CEO in the top 20% of earners.

    The trend even holds across sectors.

    Companies where CEOs were paid above the average in their sector “significantly underperformed” companies where chief executives were paid below average, according to the researchers.

    http://money.cnn.com/2016/07/27/investing/ceo-pay-performance-msci/index.html?section=money_topstories

  • Fitbit data has been utilized for various clinical trials

    Fitabase has collected over 2 billion minutes of data from users who actively wear their Fitbit activity trackers to measure sleep, activity and more. Such data has been pulled for studies on spine surgeries like that of the Northwestern Medicine and the University of California San Francisco’s work.

    https://www.engadget.com/2016/07/28/fitbit-data-has-been-utilized-for-various-clinical-trials/

Photo: Charlotte Coneybeer