News You Can Use: 5/16/2018

  • At Nike, Revolt Led by Women Leads to Exodus of Male Executives

    On March 5, the packet of completed questionnaires landed on the desk of Mark Parker, Nike’s chief executive. Over the next several weeks, at least six top male executives left or said they were planning to leave the company, including Trevor Edwards, president of the Nike brand, who was widely viewed as a leading candidate to succeed Mr. Parker, and Jayme Martin, Mr. Edwards’s lieutenant, who oversaw much of Nike’s global business.

    Others who have departed include the head of diversity and inclusion, a vice president in footwear and a senior director for Nike’s basketball division.

    It is a humbling setback for a company that is famous worldwide and has built its brand around the inspirational slogan “Just Do It.” While the #MeToo movement has led to the downfall of individual men, the kind of sweeping overhaul that is occurring at Nike is rare in the corporate world, and illustrates how internal pressure from employees is forcing even huge companies to quickly address workplace problems.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/28/business/nike-women.html

  • Here’s why Gibson is bankrupt—no, it’s not because rock is dead

    So far, so good, but Gibson also sells studio monitors, headphones, turntables, and other musical instruments, and that’s where the problems started:

    1. In 2012, it bought a stake in consumer audio company Onkyo.
    2. In 2013, it purchased stereo maker TEAC in 2013 for $53 million.
    3. The spending spree continued in 2014, when Gibson paid $135 million to acquire Royal Phillips’s home-entertainment systems, in a bid to become “the largest music and sound technology company in the world,” per its CEO. That acquisition put the company in a lot of debt

    https://www.fastcompany.com/40566146/heres-why-gibson-is-bankrupt-no-its-not-because-rock-is-dead

  • Is Airbnb ruining cities?
  • Why Social Media Discretion Is Increasingly Important to Your Brand

    A majority of the estimated 80 percent of small-business owners using Facebook are posting every day. According to CareerBuilder, “70 percent of employers use social media to screen candidates” prior to hiring. It’s wise to assume potential clients are exercising the same due diligence when they consider doing business with you.

    Trying to maintain a separation between personal and business is fruitless. Social media has connected us all to each other. Friends read your business posts and clients follow your personal posts, which means your business brand is your personal brand. It’s what you signed up for when you became an entrepreneur.

    As you post, you should assume that every bit of information you put out adds to, or takes from, the value of your personal brand. The temptation is in volunteering too much information. Nobody wants to know about your ingrown toenail.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/312814

  • Here’s how we plan to be GDPR compliant

    However, we do use some of Google’s tools for analysis purposes which, in turn, might mean Google is hoovering up personal data for its purposes. I say ‘might’ because Google hasn’t exactly been as transparent as everyone would like. Indeed, media groups have been sharply critical of Google’s approach to this thorny problem.

    Google’s problems can quickly become our problem so we’re monitoring the situation and will tweak what we do as events unfold.

    https://diginomica.com/2018/05/07/plan-gdpr-compliant/
    This topic continues to confuse me on a personal live since I don’t advertise but I do use mail lists. More to come…

Photo by Rapha Alves on Unsplash