The Only Three Zipcodes in America With Zero Ashley-Madison Accounts

Bolstering the case for mandatory universal internet access...JL

Gabrielle Bluestone reports in Gawker:

So what are residents doing instead of browsing Ashley Madison profiles? Well fishing, for one thing. Riding ATVs and skiffs. And appreciating nature.

The New York Tech Sector Employs 40% Women, 21% Minorities. Unlike California, Need We Add

Women and minorities dominate R&D but lag in software, suggesting the city's historic dominance of publishing, entertainment and other creative professions may offer opportunities for skills transference not available elsewhere.

 It also helps to have a diverse well-educated populace with easy access to inexpensive and comprehensive public transportation...for those who may actually care about doing something meaningful in the public policy realm. JL

Sam Machkovetch reports in ars technica:

Higher diversity stats in New York City, compared to numbers published by major Silicon Valley firms, is a result of "key growth areas like e-commerce drawing on traditional sectors that are more diverse."

Google Maps Will Now Accomodate Your Obsession With Photographing Your Food

Because posting is more satisfying than eating? JL

Lucy England reports in Business Insider:

The feature will alert users when Maps has found a new photo taken at a public place that might interest other users. It will then offer to attach that photo to the location so other users can see it.

Making Networked Organizations Work

Networks and the organizations that reflect them require more effort, but if effectively optimized produce outcomes that justify the additional application of resources. The challenge is in figuring out what it takes to effect and optimize. JL

Greg Satell comments in Digital Tonto:

Bureaucracies were once innovations too. Silos aren’t the issue—high clustering promotes effective collaboration—the trick is to connect the silos together effectively.

Detroit Area Mayor Seeks Ban on Personal Flamethrowers

The old slippery slope.Next thing you know they'll be going after our personal nukes... JL

David Pescovitz reports in Boing Boing:

CEO of Detroit-area flamethrower firm Ion Productions Team says that to automatically assume people will do stupid things with his company's products is "insulting and discriminatory."

The Upside of a Downturn in Silicon Valley

Identifying the problem is a first step to crafting the solution to a problem. Actually doing something about too much money chasing too few good ideas will probably be harder. JL

Farhad Manjoo reports in the New York Times:

The boom has made Silicon Valley soft: Companies are spending too much, investors are funding too many me-too ideas, and most founders have never had to confront any limits to their overweening ambitions. Venture capitalists won’t quite say they are looking forward to a correction, but some do say that a bust could toughen the place up.

Googles Networking Infrastructure Has Evolved - and How It Has Done So Matters

Add power, save money, reduce environmental impact. A trifecta of financial management that almost no one outside the company will see or feel. Except maybe investors - and competitors. JL

Frederic Lardinois reports in Tech Crunch:

Architecture now allows Google to treat a single data center as one giant computer, with software handling the distribution of the compute and storage resources available on all of the different servers on the network.

The Importance of Reaching Consumers in Their Content Cocoons

The internet has focused with laser-like intensity on personalization. But it turns out, as the following article explains, that consumers want to feel part of a larger societal whole - and they find content aimed too directly at them feels like a violation which may make them suspicious rather than connected. JL

Pat LaPointe reports in Advertising Age:

Interactive marketing technology is built around the premise that personalization is a good thing. Yet when consumers detect that a brand has made crude assumptions about them, they make assumptions of their own. Namely, that an offer is too good to be true, not actually relevant or just plain creepy.

Radical New Leadership Concept: Middle Managers

Sometimes the benefits of structure outweigh the freedom of self-guidance. Especially when you're surrounded by others who are all headed in their own directions. JL

Rachel Feintzeig reports in the Wall Street Journal:

For founders of upstart companies, reinventing management is often another way to prove that they can do business differently. “Everyone became too passive and collaborative,” he says of his team, whose members were located in France and the U.S. “It was too much democracy.”

Why the Stock Market Plunge Is Great News for Walmart

Falling prices of Chinese goods - and of commodities like gas - means more money in the pockets of Walmart customers. Hey, dont be resentful:  it's nice to know people other than high speed algorithmic securities traders are profiting from the latest financial crisis. JL

Daniel Gross reports in Slate:

The devaluation of the yuan means it'll be paying less for goods. The typical Walmart consumer depends on wages—not dividends and capital gains. That customer is sensitive to changes in gas prices. And with oil having fallen as part of the China-led market rout, the falling price of gasoline is a boon to people for whom an extra $10 or $20 to spend weekly is real money.

What Are the Most Overhyped Technologies of 2015?

                              The Hype Cycle is a crucial component of the Silicon Valley ethos. One person's heavy breathing is another's life-giving oxygen infusion. It's being able to tell the difference that counts. JL

Chris O'Brien comments in Venture Beat:

In technology, people tend to get over-excited about new thingies, and then are disappointed when the new thingies don’t change the world in the blink of an eye.But after that, some of the thingies do actually change the world, given the right evolution and path and some patience.

The Emotions That Make Us More Creative and Innovative

The organizational and cultural bias in most enterprises favors the positive: it's solutions-oriented, it's upbeat, it makes colleagues feel better.

And there is nothing intrinsically wrong with that except to the extent, as the following article explains, it marginalizes other, more skeptical, negative emotions which may be equally important to inspiring the creativity and innovation which are the life force of economic growth. JL

Scott Kauffman reports in Harvard Business Review:

The positive vs. negative emotions distinction may not be the most important contrast for understanding attentional focus. Research suggests that the critical variable influencing one’s scope of attention is not emotional valence (positive vs. negative emotions) but motivational intensity, or how strongly you feel compelled to either approach or avoid something.

The Debate About Faith-Based vs Value-Based Arguments for Intellectual Property: Who Knew?

Faith, in this instance, is not religious in the historical sense, though the fervor displayed by the protagonists would not necessarily be out of place in the Middle East. This is about the moral basis for intellectual property claims.

Moralistic might be a more accurate description of the ownership claims at which believers have thrown billions in legal fees. But the fact that there is this sort of debate about IP at all suggests that the courts' increasingly evident disgust with the outlandish demands of the litigants is beginning to expose their weakness. JL

Jeremy Sheff comments in his blog:

The first step in answering any question empirically is figuring out whether there is anything useful to measure, or whether the relevant questions are too enmeshed in subjective value that measurement cannot meaningfully capture. We can ask similar questions about innovation and creativity–from pharmaceutical patents to federal research grants to streaming audio royalties.

How an Overgrown Financial Services Sector Kills Growth

Well, can't say we weren't warned. Repeatedly. JL

Leif von Onsalen reports in MacroBusiness:

When it proceeds too fast, deepening financial institutions can lead to economic and financial instability. It encourages greater risk-taking and high leverage, if poorly regulated and supervised.

Uber Driver Screening Process Missed Convicted Criminals Including Murderers, Sex Offenders

That screen must be pretty wide - meaning Uber must be pretty desperate to add drivers. JL

Curtis Skinner reports in Reuters:

Registered sex offenders, identity thieves, burglars, a kidnapper and a convicted murderer had passed the firm's screening process and were driving for the company until they were cited for providing illegal rides

Peak Mobile? Chinese Smartphone Sales Decline For First Time

Smartphone saturation is an issue. But it is useful to remember that the mobile devices are also status symbols, signalling wealth attainment and social uplift.

That people are buying fewer of them is partly because they have what they need but also possibly because with a slowing economy, they have wisely chosen to rein in extraneous purchases, a decision that has broader implications for the global economy - as the past few days in the capital markets would suggest. JL

Janessa Rivera reports in Gartner:

China is the biggest country for smartphone sales, representing 30 percent of total sales in the second quarter of 2015. Its poor performance negatively affected the mobile phone market in the second quarter. China has reached saturation — its phone market is essentially driven by replacement, with fewer first-time buyers.

The US Has Better Data on HoneyBee Deaths Than on People Who Die in Police Custody

Whatever. It's just data...right?  JL

Shawn Musgrave comments in MuckRock:

Agricultural statisticians routinely assess honeybee populations using viable, peer-reviewed survey methods. The federal ARD (Arrest Related Deaths) program was suspended in March 2014. The Bureau of Justice Statistics concluded the program “captured 49% of law enforcement homicides.” Other estimates put the coverage as low as 36 percent.

The Death of a Car Salesman - and the Ecommerce Culprits

The skill set is changing. Forget Willy Loman with the firm handshake, the smile and the shoeshine. Think Apple Genius Bar with an automotive orientation. JL

The Economist reports:

Ten years ago Americans visited five dealers before making a purchase but now they visit 1.6 on average. What motorists do want is someone to talk them through all the features that cars come with these days—entertainment systems, navigation services, automated parking...

Will 5G Kill Free Wifi?

Every innovation has its price. The key question, increasingly in technology, is who pays it. JL

R. Colin Johnson reports in EE Times:

5G is not about faster, but about integrating all types of connectivity. To the carriers this integration will come at a price, since 5G-for-all presents the opportunity to kill free WiFi and instead charge users for every data packet they send or receive, no matter which integrated communications technologies is used.

Why Goldman Sachs Is Sharing Its Proprietary Intellectual Capital With Clients

Competitive advantage in this economy is ephemeral and sustainable advantage is delusional. Value lies not so much in proprietary systems which competitors and wannabes can replicate by studying your performance, but in the strength of relationships with clients and potential clients.

The finance business is changing, as many predicted it would. Historically a service to productive enterprises, finance over the past two decades has come to dominate the global economy, thanks, in part, to its boosting - and early use - of technology. But in a world where all is cyclical, that cycle may have run its course.

Finance was the first industry to monetize information and benefited handsomely. But with tech becoming a core feature of every business, that monopoly has ended. Abuse of the power that information gave it didn't help either, but was probably just the last impetus needed for a process already in train.

The result is that smart companies have to find new ways to make themselves essential to clients. Sharing the ties that bind through access to data - and, more importantly - the ways that data can be utilized to mutual advantage is one way of doing this. It enables Goldman and others to create their own tech-dependent ecosystems from which extricating oneself is messy and expensive. Just like Google, Apple and Amazon.

It will be particularly timely if the current market melt-down leaves clients even more desperate for guidance. It's a smart move in an age that values intelligence. Of all kinds. JL

Justin Baer reports in the Wall Street Journal:

Goldman will offer clients access to more of its in-house tools, such as high-powered databases that analyze markets and manage risk. Goldman is betting that its clients will use the individual applications to develop strategies and then execute their trades with the firm.

How Corn Made Its Way Into Everything We Eat

Only 10% of the corn grown is ingested directly by humans. The rest is ingested indirectly through government subsidies...JL

Roberto Ferdman reports in Wonkblog:

The cheapness of corn and usefulness of it as a form of energy — both for living animals and living — have proved important enough that the government subsidizes its production to the tune of some $4.5 billion each year. Farmers, realizing that the more efficient they are, the more money they will get, grow more corn. The more corn there is, the lower its price, and the greater the incentive to use it.

The Amazon Way

The issue for leaders is whether the benefits of productivity generated by treating employees 'the Amazon way' are sustainable. Understanding, of course, that longevity, in an algorithmically-driven high-speed trading economy, may no longer be considered by many a financially justifiable goal. JL

Joe Nocera comments in the New York Times:

For a data-driven executive, this kind of culture is appealing, because it maximizes the amount of work a company can wring from fungible human beings. The question Amazon’s culture raises is whether it is an outlier — or whether it represents the future of the workplace.

Why Aren't Social Networks Drawing US Adults Like They Used To?

With market penetration rates of 72% it could be argued that Facebook has attracted everyone it can, including those who were signed up by their kids. It's called saturation.

But it may also be that the utility of these networks is being called into question by busy people with way too many apps, blogs, tweets, instagram photo updates and friend requests. So until the incoming distractions are winnowed, or participation's benefits are proved incontrovertible, this may be as good as it gets. At least for a while. JL

Kurt Wagner reports in re/code:

U.S growth overall has been slowing for Twitter and Facebook over the last few years. It’s why bringing on more international users remains such a high priority.

Tech Productivity, Capital Markets and the Rest of the Global Economy

Capital markets cratered last week which, as usual, spurred a hunt for culprits. China is an obvious one: much of the developed world has been putting bread on the table by selling the Chinese whatever they want, which has been pretty much everything anyone could think of. But as optimists whose beliefs are confirmed are wont to do, China rode that trend a little too long and way too hard, leading to the types of ridiculous overinvestment that cause economies to choke on their own excess.

But the other cause may be that western faith in the abiding ability of technology to solve every economic and social problem. There is now a debate, as the following article explains, about whether the major productivity gains have already been booked and the current spate of restaurant-finding or dating apps is just fluff.

It is not surprising that the financiers are claiming the problem is government data gathering, not tech: they have gotten rich off of tech and don't want the party to end. The reality may be that we are now in a period of tech digestion and adaptation which will produce benefits in the future. The issue is that reaching that verdant, misty upland may just take a while. JL

Noah Smith comments in Bloomberg:

From the early 1970s through the early 1990s, when productivity slowed dramatically, only to zoom ahead in the late '90s and early 2000s. Now the numbers are slowing again.