Bill Gates Is Apparently the World's Greatest Secret Santa

There is a Santa. JL

Samantha Grasso reports in The Daily Dot:

Since at least 2013, the Microsoft founder has participated in Reddit's annual Secret Santa gift exchange. Aerrix walked away with: two pairs of The Legend of Zelda mittens, one for her and one for her dog Claire; one Minecraft-edition Xbox One; three special-edition wireless Xbox One controllers; the Halo 5: Guardians and Rise of the Tomb Raider games for Xbox One; one year's worth of Xbox Live gold membership cards; and a Zelda blanket. "I love my Xbox and thought you might like one too -Bill," Gates wrote. 

When Do You Outgrow IKEA?

Age 34, to be precise. JL

Price Economics reports:

You’re more likely to buy from IKEA when you’re 24 than at any other time in your life. IKEA remains popular throughout the late 20s and early 30s, but drops after age 34. We may as well call the 10-year period spanning the mid-20s and mid-30s the “IKEA decade.”

Will Populism Kill Your Jetpack? The Future of Research and Development

The 'tech-utopian' vision so many touted was already problematic because so many of those proclaiming its wonders refused - or simply didn't care - what it was doing to the society around them.


So now that said society has won itself several crucial elections, the future of a technologically-driven future may not be quite as sure a thing. JL


Scott Smith and Georgina Voss report in The Atlantic:

Visions of an advanced economy powered by technological step-changes—self-driving cars, smart infrastructure, and sustainable power may fade as the United States scrambles to satisfy a populism that cares far less for high-tech futures and much more about reviving industrial pasts. At best, the tech sector enter(s) an uncertain climate for breakthrough developments. At worst, innovations may be steered toward applications that are more risk-averse—or less democratic.

Why Apple's Bullet-Proof Wall Street Growth Story Came To A Halt This Year

Wall Street worships growth. And it's not clear where Apple's will come from in the future. JL

Matthew Lynley reports in Tech Crunch:

Global demand for smartphones in general is tapped out, and while there are some growing markets, the iPhone has always been a premium product and it’s hard to tell whether or not there is a lot of room to grow left.

Can Artifical Intelligence Beat Mom's Home Cooking?

It's the holiday season: even if it could you wouldn't dare tell her. JL

Geoffrey Fowler reports in the Wall Street Journal:

Can it replace Mom’s home cooking? No. AI still hasn’t mastered bacon, for one. But dining (it) gave me a glimpse of a future where we don’t need to be chefs to make restaurant-grade meals.

The Rights Stuff: To Dominate Entertainment, Netflix and Amazon Need Their Own Content

Intellectual property offers competitive advantage and profitability. JL

Brian Barrett reports in Wired:

International content rights are a mess, with local regulations and bidding wars creating a erratic web of availability. The Big Short Netflix launched in every single market it operates in this past summer—except France, which does not allow the streaming of movies within three years of their theatrical runs.“A lot of the time content owners might not necessarily hold all the rights to their content in different markets."

Arizona Here We Come: Uber Moves Self-Driving Cars After California Insists On Registration

Uber wants what it wants. But increasingly municipalities, regions and countries around the world are standing up to the company's bullying tactics. The issue in California was that the state insisted companies register their programs so there could be some oversight - and 20 other companies have complied.

Uber refused to register because that's part of their mystique (as they think of it) and probably because they believed there was some sort of competitive advantage to be gained over those 'sheep' who did. But the joke may be on Uber as the other companies grow in the state which is most likely to be the greatest initial self-driving market. JL

Marisa Kendall reports in the San Jose Mercury News:

Uber want(s) to bring its self-driving car program back to California eventually because the state is such a gold mine for talent and a huge market. The state’s rules haven’t stopped other companies from testing there. California has the most restrictive regime, and yet they’ve had 20 companies register.

Amazon Exerts More Control Over Delivery Network As Profits Falter

Even as it dominates ecommerce, Amazon continues to have a hard time generating a profit in that business. As the holiday shopping and shipping season peaks, it is attempting to cut costs while speeding delivery.

The question is whether more 'control' will really lead to a better return on investment - or just be another cost sink. JL


Leslie Hook and Claire Manibog report in the Financial Times:

Perfecting its shipping network is key to the company’s ecommerce business, which has never generated much profit. Amazon spent a record $4.2bn on shipping in the fourth quarter of last year, and that figure is expected to grow this year. Partly in response, Amazon signed long-term agreements earlier this year to lease as many as 40 jets. Chartering its own planes is a sign of the lengths to which the company is going as it seeks more control over its logistics network.

The Reason Tech Upgrades Just Aren't That Great Anymore

Saturation blues. Everyone has - and believes they need one.

The phone companies are no longer subsidizing and the device makers are out of the 'oh wow' business as they harvest profits, delivering incremental changes that are often hard for anyone not of the technoscenti to notice let alone be willing to shell out for.  JL

Megan McArdle reports in Bloomberg:

Improvements on both laptops and phones are increasingly coming from more marginal features: sharper displays, cameras, ports. (And) new improvements often require tradeoffs. Personal computing is completing the shift from an early-innovation market, which sees massive changes in form and power every few years, to a mature market in which people treat products like cars: Gee, that feature is nice, but I can probably wait a few more years to have it.

Data Now: Marketers Can Ask Alexa How Their Ad Campaigns Did

A first step in what will eventually become the capability to deliver voice-enabled analyses instantaneously. JL

Kate Kaye reports in Advertising Age:

The new querying capability is intended to supplement traditional dashboard reporting, giving an additional way to pull quick data points in the midst of a business conversation -- during a board meeting, for example. The voice-enabled functionality can also be used to automatically generate a breakdown of measurement data on previous campaigns that can be emailed to an end user.

How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

Apple is 'following the money' in iPhones and iPads, which last year generated 75% of the company's sales and profits.

But in doing so it risks alienating the creative opinion leaders whose dedication helped give Apple its cache and brand umbrella which established its successful transition from niche player to most valuable global brand.

The question is whether the reliance on phones will threaten the company's dominance the way Microsoft's obsession with Windows blinded it to changes in technology. JL

Mark Gurman reports in Bloomberg:

The Mac team has lost clout with the design group led by Jony Ive. There's no longer a dedicated Mac operating system team. There is just one, and most are iOS first that's part of a broader shift toward making Macs more like iPhones. Apple prioritizes features, like thinness and minimal ports, that sell its iPhones and iPads, which are contrary to professional needs, like maximum computing power.

Why the Alternative Workforce Is Growing

Given the industries affected and the demographics of those comprising the 'alt' workforce, this appears to be far more about productivity than about 'freedom,' 'independence' or a digital lifestyle choice. JL

Laurent Belsie reports in the World Economic Forum:

Independent contractors are the largest group in the 'alt' workforce, and workers employed by contract firms are the fastest-growing segment. Contract workers' share of the total workforce more than doubled, from 1.4 percent to 3.1 percent, (but) the online "gig" economy accounted for just 0.5 percent of the workforce in 2015. A quarter of Americans age 55 to 74 have alternative work, compared with only 6.4 percent among 16- to 24-year-olds.

Bots At War For Your Soul

Emotional miscue...JL

Amanda Hess reports in the New York Times:

Many bots set up to spread propaganda or disinformation masquerade as humans, but protest bots typically own their cyborg natures. Some are designed to jockey for social media position, while others set out to unmask nefarious actors, distract enemies, redirect public attention to the messages they value or build morale among activists. They’re not deployed for universal good. But in every case, bots are fighting over a limited resource: our attention.

Why Being A Lone Genius Won't Cut It Anymore

The 'Marlboro Man/ I did it my way' culture may explain why the myth has persisted against all experience and knowledge.

The question is what organizations and their investors are doing to dispel it. JL

Greg Satell comments in Inc.:

The notion of a lone genius has always been a myth. Innovations are combinations, so it is unlikely anyone ever has all the pieces to the puzzle. In the new business environment, the best way to become a dominant player is to become an indispensable partner. Collaboration is truly becoming a competitive advantage.

The Hole In the Digital Economy

Access and aptitude. JL

David Talbot reports in MIT Technology Review:

One-third of American adults do not subscribe to any Internet access faster than dial-up at their home at a time when many basic tasks—finding job listings, doing homework, obtaining social services, and even performing many jobs—require being online. Thirty-four million Americans have no access at all to broadband

Look Who's Back: Microsoft Rebooted

The key is strategic and psychological: Microsoft understands it is no longer the font of all wisdom. It is rapidly acquiring newer, smaller companies and listening to the leaders who created them and are now executives in this much larger enterprise. JL


Jay Greene reports in the Wall Street Journal:

Microsoft is shaping up to be the only pre-internet tech giant to escape the decline of its legacy product—the Windows PC operating system—and emerge as a leader in the new era of cloud computing. Executives from the 36 major acquisitions Mr. Nadella completed in his first 2½ years as CEO bring insights. “In the past, Microsoft assumed you had to be at the company 10 or 20 years to be in leadership. We consciously have recognized that’s wrong.”

Managing the Leap From IT Leader To Chief Executive

The breadth of experience - or lack thereof - and often invidious perceptions of social skills may work against CIOs.

But as every enterprise becomes a tech company, those competencies are increasingly important strategically. And especially for younger companies. JL

Jessica Twentyman reports in the Financial Times:

Relatively few [chief information officers] even aspire to be a chief executive And even if they do harbor such ambitions, they may not have the experience they need.Only a handful ever win a seat on the board of directors. Some struggle even to reach the executive committee of their company. One career path is for chief information officers to consider young “disrupter” companies that rely heavily or totally on technology to deliver their products.

How One Huge American Retail Chain Has Defied the Internet and Won

TJX scavenges the world for bargains, so its customers can believe they found a deal.

Data drives decision making - and 'intelligence is the most important asset they have.' JL

Kim Bhasin and Lindsey Rupp report in Bloomberg:

TJX boasts a wide net of inventory buyers who find small batches of desirable clothing, then make a small bet on those. This is unlike the traditional department store model, where buyers look at trends and make large orders of a few items.“You’re buying closed-out product and samples. You have to be very attuned to the numbers and very attuned to the fashion. The intelligence that goes into buying the product is the most important asset they have."

7-Eleven Delivers 77 Packages By Drone In First Month of Delivery Service

Yes, it helps to start in a place like Nevada where there is a lot of open land, which is mostly desert.

But still, a drone delivery is drone delivery, especially when it is on the verge of becoming routine. JL

Darrell Etherington reports in Tech Crunch:

Convenience chain 7-Eleven has completed 77 drone deliveries during month one of its commercial service in Reno, Nevada. Items available included both hot and cold food, and over-the-counter medicines. The drones lowered these to the ground while hovering when they arrived, and most of the deliveries took less than 10 minutes from when they were ordered to putting the products in customer hands.

How This App Sells Hugely Discounted Restaurant Leftovers

Another technologically-driven productivity enhancement. JL

Sarah Ruiz-Grossman reports in the Huffington Post:

The mobile app FoodForAll allows users to buy leftover food from nearby restaurants at anywhere from 50 to 80 percent off the original price. Users log in, see which participating restaurants in the area have surplus food available, order and pay through the app. They can go pick up their food at a time designated by the restaurant, usually around closing. “The main goal is to reduce food waste, and have better distribution for restaurants’

Amazon Seasonal Workers Live In Tents Near Warehouse To Avoid Paying Excessive Company Transportation Fees

This is reminiscent of 19th century industrial conditions in which workers, particularly coal miners, were required to live in company-provided housing and buy necessities from a company store, the expenses for which were deducted from their paychecks and which kept them permanently in arrears, conditions akin to slavery. JL

Tom Mendelsohn reports in ars technica:

Warehouse staff, most of whom are working on a temporary basis to help cover the yearly glut of Christmas orders, are forced by the agency they work for to pay £10 per day to take arranged buses to work—costing them roughly one seventh of their daily after-tax pay.

Data Offers Deeper Legal Insights On How Judges Might Rule

The data may not be as important as the interpretation. JL

Sara Randazzo reports in the Wall Street Journal:

New tools, mined from millions of court documents, offer lawyers statistics on the likelihood of a lawsuit’s being dismissed, for instance, or the average wait time until a trial. Lawyers say the data can help temper client expectations, influence courtroom decision-making and even save money by flagging strategies unlikely to succeed. (But) “when you tell lawyers sophisticated mathematics are an important part of their arsenal, that’s not universally applauded.”

Work-Life Balance vs Work-Life Integration: Is There Really A Difference?

No. But our technologically-driven propensity for finding ever narrower gradations of meaning from ever expanding sources of knowledge leads us to contemplate such distinctions. JL

Rachel Ritlop comments in Forbes:

The boundaries between professional and personal life are blurring. It is impractical to think of  a complete separation between worlds. Balance is not rooted in the amount of time you give to one compared to another; but rather the value you gain from each to create a fulfilling life. By that definition, there is no difference between work-life balance and integration since all parts are blending and working towards a greater quality of life.

Why Management Theory Is Becoming A Compendium Of Dead Ideas

Certain management 'truths' have become so deeply ingrained that they are considered inviolable: the transcendent power of speed, disruption, competition and entrepreneurialism among them.

But the economy is evolving, as the history of cycles tells us it is wont to do. And the theories on which contemporary enlightenment are based may not be changing as quickly as the reality on the ground - or in the ether. Smart organizations will continue to balance their own knowledge and experience against perceived wisdom in order to optimize their results and their future. JL

The Economist reports:

The similarities between medieval Christianity and management theory may not be obvious, but seek and ye shall find. Business schools are cathedrals of capitalism. Consultants are its traveling friars. The medieval sale of indulgences is echoed by theorists selling fads to solve all business problems (in) a hyper-competitive world in which giants are felled by disruption. (But) the most striking trend today is not competition, it's consolidation. Business creation declined since the 1970s. Business is slowing down (because) it's so easy to acquire information, organisations dither.

Drink From Home: The Rise of the Remote-Work Holiday Party

Hey, what's on the screen is just as real as what can be seen in person. JL

Joe Pinsker reports in The Atlantic:

Compulsory corporate fun, as draining as it sounds, exists to serve an organizational purpose. Having remote workers “[see] each other as humans” instead of just chat-app icons or email addresses, and forcing the group to do something different, speak in a way that’s different … even though they might seem silly, might be really generative.” "(And) one advantage of a work-from-home holiday party? We don't have to have a designated driver."

About That Free Wifi In Malls and Airports

Nothing is free. Especially personal information. Because information is data. And data has value. JL

Laura Hautala comments in CNET:

You're still going to use your phone at the mall to look up product reviews, scout for the best sale prices or transfer money into a checking account. For free internet access, the Wi-Fi owner (gets rights) to do things like "reading and responding to your emails, monitoring of input and/or output." Attention holiday shoppers: Think of public Wi-Fi as hackers' on-ramp to the rest of us, giving free rein to collect usernames, passwords and read texts and emails.

Big Data and Government: China's Digital Dictatorship

Commonplace in China and Russia. Coming soon to western democracies? JL

The Economist reports:

A society lacking in trust is unstable. So (the Chinese government) is experimenting with a “social-credit system." The idea is to harness digitally stored information to chivvy everyone into behaving more honestly. The government talks about this as a tool of “social management." Citizens’ ratings are to be linked with their identity-card numbers. Bad scores might result in sanctions, such as being denied a bank loan or permission to buy a railway ticket.

How Tesla Could Lose Its Electric Car Lead To Big Automakers

History suggests that affordability and consistency will beat novelty. JL

Stephen Wilmot reports in the Wall Street Journal:

Tesla’s early lead in the luxury market is impressive. But experienced manufacturers from the auto industry’s existing hubs are mastering the new technology. They seem more likely to carry the electric torch into a more affordable era.

Why Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft All Desperately Need You To Know the Robots Are Coming

Things are a little dull in the 'what have you wowed me with lately' world of big tech. Smartphones? even your grandmother has one. Virtual assistants? so 2014. Cloud computing? yeah, talk to my IT guys.

The challenge is making artificial intelligence, virtual reality and their confreres compelling enough to excite not just a new generation of potential buyers, but the math and tech dudes who are actually capable of doing something notable with it if they get excited enough. Which is why tech companies are releasing code for developers to play with and hoping they come up with something before the rest of world gets really bored playing with their phones and goes back to something like taking walks, making cocoa and playing board games on actual boards. JL

Matt Weinberger reports in Business Insider:

There hasn't been a truly game-changing, mass-market piece of technology that's totally dominated the conversation. The biggest companies in tech spent 2016 hyping up something a little more abstract: their ongoing quests to build a so-called "general artificial intelligence." If you want a job in tech, spend some time learning programming and statistics and invest some time in playing with the AI code that Microsoft, Facebook, Google, et al, have freely released.

The Great Artificial Intelligence Awakening

Grand theories inspire possibility, but specific applications create opportunity. JL

Gideon Lewis-Krauss reports in the New York Times:

“You are not what you write, but what you have read.” The new Google Translate was run on the first machines that had  ever learned to read anything at all. Google used artificial intelligence to transform Google Translate, one of its more popular services — and machine learning is poised to reinvent computing itself. What is at stake is not just one more innovation but control over an entirely new computational platform: pervasive, ambient artificial intelligence.

Is Social Media Killing Discourse Because It's Too Much Like TV?

The absence of challenge is a feature, not a bug. JL

Hossein Derahkshan comments in MIT Technology Review:

Social media uses algorithms to encourage comfort and complaisance, since its business model is built upon maximizing the time users spend inside of it. Who would hang around in a place where everyone seems to be negative, mean, and disapproving? The outcome is a radicalization of emotions. Like TV it now entertains us, and more so than television it amplifies existing beliefs and habits. It makes us feel more than think, and it comforts more than challenges.

Google's Year In Search

Pokemon-Go and the iPhone 7 beat Donald Trump, which may tell us more - or less - about the state of our civilization than we might want to know.

Herewith, the various lists. JL


Stan Schroeder reports in Mashable:

Pokémon Go was the most searched-for topic this year, and even though the interest for the augmented reality game has waned since the launch in June, it was enough to catch first place. The iPhone 7 is in second place, followed by President-elect Donald Trump,

How Investor Demand Is Causing Analysts To Focus on Social and Environmental Risks

In a highly competitive and volatile investing environment, no one can afford to ignore any credible source of data offering potentially significant differentiation in results, especially those which are increasingly popular with clients. JL

Randall Smith reports in the New York Times:

The amount of assets managed using E.S.G. factors has more than tripled to $8.1 trillion since 2010 driven in part by big money managers trying new ways to evaluate potential warning flag(s) for stock-market darlings “with aggressive practices that may be skating too close to the edge.” (And) younger investors like the approach. “It really helps us understand business risks — and opportunities.”

Mobile Magic: PayPal and Citi Forge (Yet Another) Mobile Payment Alliance

Consumers have been reluctant to embrace mobile wallets. Concerns about hacking vulnerability and privacy combined with lack of economic incentives have stifled growth in what continues to be a service that most observers expected to expand exponentially.

The challenge for financial services firms and their tech allies is making a compelling argument for supplanting credit cards - and for handing so much more information over to institutions whose uses for it are not transparent. JL

Telis Demos reports in the Wall Street Journal:

The announcement is the latest in an escalating race between banks and technology players to make it easier for consumers to use their mobiles to pay for everyday goods and services. Some argue that the range of choices are confusing customers and slowing adoption. Only 16% of U.S. consumers have used a mobile wallet. To encourage usage, PayPal and the banks .plan to enable people to pay via apps with checking accounts, credit lines, and even rewards points.

Turning Big Data Into Manageable Data

Big data is just getting so darned big that enterprises risk the inability to effectively, productively and affordably utilize it. The resulting solutions required will be innovations in management and analytical process in order to optimize the cost, time- benefit continuum. JL

Kevin Murnane reports in Forbes:

Data analysis tools such as principal-component analysis are commonly used to reduce the number of variables in a dataset. Unfortunately, using these tools on massive big data sets is often too time consuming to be practical. Reducing big-data into a coreset preserves the important mathematical relationships that are present in the big data and is small enough to be used effectively by a variety of data analysis techniques.

Why the Vast Majority of Workers Want A Regular Job Rather Than Flexibility

Human capital markets appear to abhor uncertainty as much as financial capital markets.

This runs counter to the popular belief that workers 'love' flexibility. It turns out that the psychological cost associated with the inability to make plans is sufficiently high that a majority will even sacrifice minimal amounts of pay to achieve scheduling regularity.

For enterprises, the question is the degree to which the perceived benefits of imposing flexibility can be optimized to offset impacts on employee turnover, productivity and operational performance. JL

Sarah Kessler reports in Quartz:

The idea that workers, especially Millenials, love flexibility has become an important matter for companies' policies. But (workers surveyed) were willing to take a pay cut of 22 cents per hour to avoid that option. (When asked) which of the following do you believe make an organization an attractive employer?” 44% said competitive wages. Only 21% said flexible work schedule. “People just want a fixed schedule. They don’t really care about being able to adjust it.”

Online Travel Agencies Finally Realize Customers Want Someone To Talk To

For now, chatbots and voice recognition software pared with algorithmically-driven virtual assistants. But if margins improve, even good old-fashioned humans could make a comeback. JL

Leslie Josephs reports in Quartz:

For two decades, booking travel has largely become an impersonal chore. Now, the online travel agencies that dominate the way we book our travel are realizing that would-be travelers are craving conversation. Most has been achieved with chatbots. Booking.com said it is testing voice-recognition. Virtual assistants like Google Home could serve that purpose. “Over time, will people say, ‘I want to go to London,’ and the device will do everything."

The Inside Story of Apple's Uncollected $14 Billion Tax Bill

The global economy is competitive, even for a dominant brand like Apple. But sometimes companies get too caught up in their own paranoia. JL

Gaspard Sebag and colleagues report in Bloomberg:

The iPhone came out in 2007. So why was Apple still paying taxes like it was 1990? Apple and Ireland agreed that the profit attributed to a key Ireland-based unit be capped using a complex formula that in 1990 would have resulted in a taxable profit of $30 million to $40 million. An Apple tax adviser “confessed there was no scientific basis” for those figures. Republican John McCain castigated Apple as “one of the biggest tax avoiders in America.”

Tis Not the Season To Put Off Shopping

Despite the inexorable - and obvious - growth in ecommerce, fueled in part by the 'crack cocaine' of free shipping, UPS and FedEx are having a hard time meeting demand. They have invested in new systems and hubs but volume keeps outpacing their planning models - and there are only so many people available and willing to take on seasonal work.

The result is that holiday shoppers who wait  on the assumption their last minute purchases will arrive in time may be disappointed. JL

Erica Phillips and Jennifer Smith report in the Wall Street Journal:

UPS expects to handle a record of more than 700 million packages between Thanksgiving and the end of December this year, up 14% from last year’s all-time high. FedEx expects a 10% bump. Both say demand during the holiday season can double their volume. Because e-commerce is growing so explosively, it is hard to know how much volume to anticipate. Until this trend shows any stabilization, the carriers are going to have a tough time trying to keep up.

Uber Wants To Take Over Public Transit, One Small Town At A Time

Monopolies monopolize. And then they raise prices. It's not personal, that's just what their incentive structure commands. JL

Spencer Woodman reports in The Verge:

Cities are struggling to fund existing transit service, much less expand it to meet the needs of growing numbers of urban commuters. Both Uber and Lyft ha(ve) seen a surge in public officials interested in giving the companies taxpayer dollars for public transit contracts. For the companies, it’s an appealing new way to establish themselves as vital infrastructure. Critics worry these programs could pluck affluent commuters who wield political influence off trains and busses.

How Marketers Miss the Majority of Mobile Engagement Opportunities

Everyone wants to 'be' mobile, but the absence of good data and the inclination to save money by adapting existing solutions designed for earlier technologies creates a reluctance to invest in re-engineered solutions focused primarily on mobile impact. JL

Venture Beat reports:

Marketers are still leaning heavily on legacy solutions originally designed for email. So (they're) stuck in an endless cycle of pre-built messages fashioned from demographic data that’s already historical. (They)’re spending, on average, $2.51 to acquire the single loyal iOS user who will open (an) app no more than three times. The goal of app loyalty is often a black hole, instead of the much more lucrative ongoing, valuable engagement with existing customers

Could Automation Actually Create More Jobs Than It Destroys?

The short answer is yes, by creating more demand through growth in those fields where automation enhances human capabilities, not just replaces them. But with the added proviso, 'eventually.'

The question is whether society is willing to invest in programs that ease the transition and thus improve the short term economics. JL

The Economist reports:

Rather than destroying jobs, automation redefines them in ways that boost demand. Employment grew faster in occupations ( graphic design) that made more use of computers: as automation sped up a job, workers do the other parts better. More computer-intensive jobs displaced less computer-intensive ones, thus (they) reallocate rather than displace, (and) not just in fields such as software. The same seems to be true of fields where AI is being deployed.