Centives

Schumpeter at the Economist looked at the lessons that businesses can learn from Mother Theresa and Lady Gaga. Some of them include:

• Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu became Mother Teresa and Stefani Germanotta turned into Lady Gaga. The decision to pick up clear, easy to remember names hints at effective brand management.
• They utilized these brands to target a specific group of people. Mother Theresa engaged those who were “shunned by everyone” while Lady Gaga speaks to those who feel like outsiders from society.
• Both worked extremely hard. Mother Theresa rose before 5am every morning and Lady Gaga is constantly on tour.
• Mother Theresa and Lady Gaga also had a broader collective mission that gave structure to their followers.

The article goes on to talk about the effective communication techniques that helped propel them to success, as well as some drawbacks to their methods. Read it over here.

The people over at Freakonomics recently took a look at the Volvo XC60’s claims of being green. They were, to say the least, unimpressed. Read about it here.

Source: Freakonomics

It’s old news that the U.S. is suffering through a time of high unemployment, and records are starting to be broken. The average time of unemployment for those unemployed is now at an all time high – nearly 40 weeks. The problem with this is that the longer one is unemployed, the more difficult it is to become employed, thus the problems for these unemployed workers are compounded. This leads to the problem of unemployment benefits, which are running out for many people and leaving them in an even worse position.

Source: Economix Blog

Wired recently took a look at a fast growing emerging market: the market for human breast milk. It won’t be long before we’ll see breast milk-backed securities (remember, you heard it here first.) Some of the highlights from the article include:

• Breast milk can cost up to $2.50 an ounce
• Breast milk is the only bodily fluid not regulated by government authorities because it’s considered a food
• Less than half of all mothers breast feed their children for the recommended six months

The article has a lot more including the emerging battle between online sites that pay the mothers for their contributions, and corporations who would prefer that the mothers donate it for free instead.

Source: Wired Magazine

Via: Will Dearden

Leung Weiwen, an undergraduate at Singapore Management University found that there was a relationship between a country’s population, GDP per capita and how well the country did at chess. Some of the findings of the paper include:

• Armenia, Georgia and Moldova are the clearest outliers. Their players do a lot better than their population size or GDP per capita would suggest.
• South Korea, the Bahamas and Guyana do a lot worse than their population size or GDP per capita would suggest
• At best, population size and GDP can only explain about 40% of a country’s success at Chess

You can read the full paper over here.

Source: Chessbase

Via: Marginal Revolution

As it turns out it wasn’t just abstract ideals like democracy and human rights that benefitted from the recent revolutions in the Middle East. Arms Manufacturers are expecting a sales bonanza.

• The Middle East spent $111 billion on arms in 2010, with the bulk of the purchases coming from Saudi Arabia
• Somewhat surprisingly South America saw the largest increase in military spending in 2010
• India was the world’s largest arms importer in 2010
• The US accounts for 41% of the world’s military spending
• The US military budget has increased by 81% since 2001

You can read more about the state of the global arms market here.

Source: BBC News

Wired Magazine recently asked “Who Killed the Internet Auction?” the answer was more complicated than you’d think. It’s impossible to summarize the article in a few points, and you really do have to read it, but a couple of interesting facts:

• An Irish immigrant made popular a system of fixed prices rather than a haggle based shopping experience in the United States
• Auctions account for just 31% of all sales on eBay

The article also has an in depth analysis of the differences between the laissez faire techniques that eBay used when setting up its marketplace, and the more authoritarian management by Amazon of its third party retailers.

Source: Wired Magazine

Via: Will Dearden

20% according to InTrade, a self-styled “Prediction Market” where individuals can place bets on whether or not certain events will happen. Some of their Hot Markets include:

• 63% Chance that Barack Obama will be re-elected
• 29% Chance that Mitt Romney will be Republican Presidential Nominee
• 39% Change that Sarah Palin will announce a run for the presidency before 2012
• 31% Chance that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will no longer be President of Iran in 2012
• 7.9% Chance that NASA will discover aliens in 2011
• 0.8% Chance that Joe Biden will be elected President in 2012

Source: InTrade

Slate’s Explainer took a look at some of the current programs that the United States government runs to encourage poor people to save. Some of the more interesting findings include:

• The United States Federal Government spends $600 billion on measures designed to encourage the poor to save more, yet most of these measures only help the wealthy.
• The vast number of investment schemes available for retirement schemes are so confusing that many just opt for inaction and avoid saving
• In the United States 80% of the benefits of the tax treatment of retirement savings go to 20% of the earners

You can read more over here.

Source: Slate Magazine

BBC News took a look at how outdoor advertising is changing in the digital world. While such ads are overshadowed by Google’s online ad network, the BBC found that the distinction between online and outdoors was increasingly shrinking. You can read more over here.

Some of the more interesting ad concepts included:

• An ad aimed at dads put two screens Read the rest of this entry →