Pret A Manger is a UK based chain that has seen immense growth and success in the United States. Timothy Noah revealed one of the secrets behind this achievement:

• Employees of Pret A Manger are expected to genuinely enjoy and be excited about their work…or at least to pretend to. This is why the attendants at Pret always seem to have an infectious good mood.
• The parent company enforces this policy by sending a mystery shopper to each outlet once a week. If the mystery shopper gets the kind of treatment that Pret expects then the entire staff get a bonus. If not then nobody in that outlet gets a bonus that week.
• This type of emotional labour isn’t new. After all prostitutes have been faking emotions and affection for centuries.
• It is, however, something that more and more companies are requiring. Which is a pity for men since women are better at it. This might explain why the recent downturn in the economy disproportionately hurt men.

Read more about this emotional labour, Pret’s rationale for opposing unions, and Noah’s thoughts about the entire concept over here.

Source: New Republic

It’s Super Bowl weekend and Betty Liu and Dominic Chu looked at price inflation it was driving in New Orleans. Here’s what they found:

• The normal average cost for a three day trip to New Orleans is $1,000.
• During the Superbowl though that same trip will cost you $15,400.
• The price of an average hotel has increased by 944% from $249 a night to $2,600 a night.
• The price of a nonstop flight has increased 353% from $300 to $1,360.
• Who would’ve thought that the car rental companies are the most reasonable of them all? The price of a rental car has ‘only’ increased 200% from $66 a day to $198 a day.

Source: Bloomberg TV

Today, February 1^st, 2013 is the day when Netflix released the entire first season of House of Cards for subscribers to watch online. In the future we might look back at this day as the day when television’s next transformation began writes The Economist:

• Netflix as well as other online video providers such as Hulu and Amazon are increasingly producing their own professional television content to air on their streaming services rather than on traditional cable channels.
• They are doing this because it’s exceedingly expensive for them to acquire the rights to stream movies owned by other companies. By producing and streaming their own content they have a handle on costs.
• The video streaming sites also need a way to differentiate themselves from one another and having their own proprietary content is the best way to do this.
• Netflix is getting creative. Rather than follow the weekly episodic release cycle, it has instead released the entire first season because telemetric data suggests that people prefer ‘binging’ on TV shows.

Read more about what House of Cards means for television over here. As a PSA The Verge is reporting that owners of an Xbox will not be required to have signed up for Xbox gold to watch the series this weekend.

Source: The Economist

Laura Northrup wrote about an individual who had a miraculous experience with their cable company:

• Time Warner increased the internet speed of someone living in Kansas City by 50%.
• And what did they have to pay for this boost? Nothing. Time Warner decreased their bill by 33%.
• Perhaps coincidentally, Google Fiber, an internet initiative that promises to give Americans truly high speed internet will be coming to that individual’s location.

Read more over here.

Source: Consumerist

We’ve previously looked at the absurdity of Amazon’s business model. After Amazon announced its fourth quarter results, Matthew Yglesias thought of a theory as to why the company does things the way it does. He writes:

“Amazon, as best I can tell, is a charitable organization being run by elements of the investment community for the benefit of consumers. The shareholders put up the equity, and instead of owning a claim on a steady stream of fat profits, they get a claim on a mighty engine of consumer surplus. Amazon sells things to people at prices that seem impossible because it actually is impossible to make money that way.”

Read more here.

Source: Slate

Alert the Queen of England! Rajeev Syal reports that a nefarious band of delinquents is considering running ads trashing the glory of Great Britain and painting it as a horrible place to live. These misfits operate out of the heart of London and are reportedly led by a Mr David Camer – wait, what?

• Next year curbs on the immigration of Bulgarians and Romanians to the rest of the EU will be lifted.
• In an effort to stem the influx of Bulgarian and Romanian citizens, the UK government is considering running ads that would point the true horrors of life in England in an effort to dissuade them from arriving.
• This is an odd twist for a country that exports image consultants that help improve the image of other countries.
• It would also diminish the legacy of the 2012 Olympics, since the whole point of hosting those games in England was to improve England’s image abroad.
• There probably won’t even be that many immigrants anyway. Bulgarian and Romanian immigrants will have over 25 countries to choose from, and will probably go for Germany.

Read more about the ads, a notable precedent, and what they might complain about over here.

Source: The Guardian

Via: Foreign Policy

Nicholas Day looked at how playgrounds have changed over the years…and what the next big thing might be:

• After the 1970s Americans became more concerned about the safety of the playground and replaced things like merry-go rounds with the brightly coloured spongy hard plastic material you see at most playgrounds today.
• However this made playgrounds boring. And ultimately this is worse for the health of a child because this encourages them to stay inside at home, thus neglecting exercise and contributing to health issues.
• Efforts to make playgrounds more interesting since then have failed due to the fear of lawsuits.
• Enter the “Imagination Playground” which simply gives children giant blue blocks to move around, build structures with, and ultimately have fun with.
• At the Imagination Playground “play associates” – a common sight in the UK – oversee the fun to ensure that everybody is having a good time and no blocks go missing.

See photos of the Imagination Playground and read more about how it works over here.

Source: Slate

Move over cupcakes. Popcorn is the next big food trend writes Martha Write:

• The new popcorn is nothing like what you get at a movie theater. Some of the more interesting flavours include bacon, blue cheese, beer, cheesecake, and truffle.
• This gourmet popcorn is not cheap and can cost $5 or more per small bag.
• Caterers are increasingly serving popcorn at classy gatherings such as weddings.
• The popcorn business looks set for a lot of growth in part due to the low startup costs – anybody can make popcorn, as well as high margins, since the raw ingredients cost very little.

Read more about the biggest players in this growing market, and musings on why popcorn has become so popular over here.

Source: Time

Via: Newmark’s Door

As a website that got its start at Lehigh University, Centives managed to attract some of the best and brightest students. Many of them either have, or would like to, become management consultants. And, at least according to Ray Fisman and Tim Sullivan, the world will be a better place because of it:

• In one experiment where Accenture – a management consulting company – offered its services to small Indian businesses for free, researchers found that Accenture’s advice was so valuable that if they had charged for their talent then the Indian businesses would have easily paid it back after a year of improved profits.
• By increasing incomes management consultants help generate more wealth for people around the world.
• And it’s not just about money. If hospitals had better management practices then they could increase the number of lives they saved.
• Countries with the worst management practices (India, China, Brazil, Greece, and Argentina), would benefit if management advice was exported by those who do it best (USA, Japan).

Read more about Davos, a conference where managers pay $19,000 each to discuss their businesses, and more about the importance of good management practices over here.

Source: Slate

Harry Bradford looked at the value of The White House:

• Strip the White House of its historical value and the American President’s home office with its 132 rooms, movie theater, bowling alley, and tennis court would be worth $110 million.
• Only two properties in the entire United States are worth more.
• In contrast the residence of the UK’s Prime Minister was valued at $7.3 million in 2010.
• If you took into account The White House’s history and importance as a national symbol the building would likely fetch more than $1 billion in an open auction.

Read more about what you would be paying for if you were considering making the President an offer for the property, and how The White House compares to Buckingham Palace over here.

Source: Huffington Post