The Affluent are Less Likely to Reach Out to Others in Times of Trouble

'The rich are different from you and me.' So said F. Scott Fitzgerald, author and bon vivant.

And recent research supplants what, in his case, was simply fond envy, with revealing data.

The point of this study is that the coping mechanisms people employ to deal with economic dislocation are often profoundly dissimilar and sometimes antithetical. Loss of income and status is accepted as an unfortunate but unsurprising occurrence by lower income groups who will often come closer together for mutual support during difficult times. Wealthier people, the research discloses, are more concerned with protecting what they have, especially material possessions, and will do what they need to do to accomplish that goal.

In evaluating opportunities, the less affluent, when offered a job in a distant location, will often decline in order to stay closer to friends and family. The wealthy will generally take it if the terms are right, assuming that financial success is more important - and that ties can be maintained through travel unaffordable to others.

The implication is based as much on values as on value: what people consider precious may vary according to what they already have, the way they have been raised and their perceptions of how they will be judged by others. This may imply that communitarian spirit provides stronger psychological and emotional support for those who have it, while those who eschew it for individualistic or materialistic benefits could be more brittle if things do not go their way.

This is not to say that one is better than the other, but that the two standards reflect world views that are more disparate than social, cultural and religious bounds might have led us to believe. JL

Science Daily reports:

Crises are said to bring people closer together. But a new study from UC Berkeley suggests that while the have-nots reach out to one another in times of trouble, the wealthy are more apt to find comfort in material possessions.

Revolution Beats Disruption

Disruption has had a good run.

Since Clayton Christensen coined the term 'disruptive innovation' during the dotcom era it has gotten a lot of play as one of the most significant factors driving productive change, particularly in the technology universe which has come to encompass almost all aspects of human endeavor.

But as a civilization we still face an awful lot of challenges. Technology has not eliminated poverty or violence or many other human ills. It may have increased opportunity for many, but the pace of change is slow. Which is why tech leaders like Twitter's Jack Dorsey are advocating revolution. Not, we suspect, in a storm the barricades sense, but as a means of hastening the breakthroughs necessary to create a more just - and - more commercially viable global society. Especially as the two are intertwined in consumer driven economies.

Disruption merely distracts. Revolution offers profound change that can shift the axis of the enterprise and create new opportunities, significant in impact and scale.

How, exactly, to do this remains uncertain. But it is a conversation worth having and an effort worth making. JL

Greg Satell comments in Digital Tonto:

Jack Dorsey, the celebrated founder of Twitter and Square, who is the probably the man most often compared to Steve Jobs in Silicon Valley, urged his audience to seek not disruption, but revolution.

More specifically, he said that “Revolution has value, revolution has purpose — a direction and leaders… We don’t want ‘disruption,’ where we just move things around. We want a direction. We want a purpose.”

When the Male Market Softens...Hooters Discovers Demographics

51% of the population are women. So are 60% of college students. And you know what is happening in the work force.

So it is no surprise that a bar/restaurant chain catering egregiously to 'dudes' is not enjoying the same financial success it might once have done. With household incomes in decline, there isnt enough money to go around for segmented family entertainment. Family, more than ever, has to be inclusive. Places where women feel uncomfortable, never mind unwelcome, have some 'splainin' to do.

In addition, getting expense account charges approved when the boss is just as likely to be a woman as a man makes submitting bills from the raunchy bar scene a more questionable career-enhancing strategy.

The larger issue is change in the face of demographic and psychographic changes that portend shifts in mores, values and, ultimately, purchase decisions. In the post-industrial economy, people are what they buy. Their choices broadcast more about them they did when price was all that mattered.

Men, perhaps more than women, have had to adjust. It's a process - and it is far from over. But any enterprise that assumes attitudes are static is likely to find itself on the wrong side of history. JL

Duane Stanford and Leslie Patton report in Bloomberg Businessweek:

Four years of revenue declines have forced Hooters to revamp its appeal. Women, even fully dressed ones, are welcome

What Does Healthier Mean?

Words matter.

Organic food is the fastest growing segment of the food market.

The reasons are varied but are essentially based on the belief that organic foods are healthier because they are exposed to and contain fewer chemicals harmful to humans. The world has many developed, affluent societies with aging populations for whom longevity has become a prominent issue. In developing countries, especially China, food safety is quite literally a matter of life and death. Organics appeal to both sets of concerns.

So when researchers at Stanford University issued a study suggesting the additional health value derived from organics was illusory and quite possibly contrived, it caused quite a stir.

A few years ago, organic advocates would probably have been devastated by the criticism from one of the world's most prestigious universities. Not any more.

Critics of the study challenged the researchers' methodology while other commentators, such as the one below, raised pertinent questions about the vocabulary employed to communicate what may well have been a bias or predisposition inherent in the study.

Either way, notice has been served. Prominent academics and 'experts' no longer get a free pass when it comes to matters of popular concern. The internet has democratized knowledge and communications. And we are all healthier for that. JL

Curtis Brainard comments in the Columbia Journalism Review:

“Healthier” is a word the media often use without enough care, and that shortcoming was on full display during last week’s coverage of a study examining the nutritional value and presence of contaminants in organic versus conventional foods.

Should YouTube Censor the Anti-Muslim Video Sparking World-wide Violence?

YouTube and its parent, Google, are faced with a difficult choice.

Their policy has always been quite publicly defined. Nothing will be censored unless it contains hate speech, advocates violence against others or is the subject of a local law banning specific content.

The video "Innocence of Muslims" is subject to none of those conditions. But it has sparked rioting and violence around the world that have left four American diplomats dead as well as rioters and security personnel in a growing list of countries.

The dilemma is whether to moderate its own policy in the face of the physical dangers to human beings the video has sparked - or whether to stand firm in honor of the best traditions of free speech, civil liberties and civilized discourse.

Most of the commentary on the 'net has castigated YouTube for taking the video off in Egypt and Libya where the violence began. The critics' claim is that YouTube and its parent company, Google, have already violated their principles by caving in to extremists' cynical manipulation of popular will in those nations. But then it is easy to be critical when you are sitting in the air-conditioned comfort of your handsome, comfortable office or home in the placid safety of New York or San Francisco.

Others believe that extraordinary circumstances require extraordinary action. You take the video off the net as a matter of public safety in a volatile world. And then, of course, there are many Muslims who claim to be genuinely offended by a deliberate attempt to insult the holiest evocation of their faith.

The challenge is that in a world of global communications, certain messages may seem obnoxious but tolerable in some parts of the world but terminally offensive in others. This controversy is exacerbated by the fact that some of the protest is now and has been in the past (such as the cartoon controversy in Denmark a few years back), manipulated by elements intent on using it to further their political, ideological and military ends.

The free speech advocates are right to be concerned about the longer term implications of censorship. Is every image or statement offensive to one group automatic grounds for deletion? And is it utterly self-serving? Will Muslim groups support the deletion of images offensive to Judaism? We already know the answer to that question is a caustic no.

The problem is that many governments are using the riots as a way of currying sympathy with the mob. They claim, wink-wink, that they'll move their security forces in when things have calmed a bit. The manipulation of public opinion against 'the other,' any other is as old as history. It has had its most recent, horrific uses in Germany, Bosnia and Rwanda, among others.

YouTube is not the UN. But it has derived much of its success from its globalism. In the world of modern, instantaneous communication but ancient cultures and beliefs, it may have to consider revisiting its standards to reflect its arguably unwanted but undeniable power. JL

Ari Melber comments in The Nation:

The protests against the now infamous YouTube video disparaging the Prophet Mohammad have thrust YouTube, and its parent company Google, into a tough situation.

While the company says it values free speech and usually only removes videos that violate its policies, it is experimenting with a deliberately inconsistent approach to the crisis surrounding the video, “Innocence of Muslims.”

Deceptive Delight: Secrets of the Fast Food Industry's Dollar Menus

How do they do it?

How can they possibly sell food for less than it would cost you to make it at home - and maybe even buy the raw materials at the grocery store?

It is not, as surprised as you may be to hear it, out of the goodness of their hearts.

The dollar menus are not loss leaders in the classic sense, although they work in a similar fashion to increase volume by enticing more customers to buy. According to the industry, they do not lose money, though they barely make a profit. And as many consumers have noticed, the size of the offerings has diminished as the price of meat, vegetables and the energy cost of transportation has risen.

The real secret to the dollar menu's power is that very few people ever buy just the dollar menu items. And that is where the profit lies. The drinks (super-size me!), sides and desserts that people purchase to accompany the basic dollar menu are the highest margin items. Drinks are especially big money makers since the volume of ice and water in the biggest sizes disguises the fact that in terms of ingredients they are almost indistinguishable from the smaller ones.

So, the combination of increased traffic and additional purchases makes the dollar menu a profitable strategy option for an industry whose customers have seen their incomes shrink in real terms over the past generation.

This is a relatively benign form of advantage-taking, especially when compared with the truly predatory mortgage lending practices of the past decade. People can buy just the dollar menu if they want to, whereas in the financial services case, they were required to agree to conditions that were patently misleading.

Americans have become more cost-conscious as real estate prices, jobs and wages have declined. Household debt is being paid down and depressed retail sales suggest that an economy built on credit is readjusting to reality. What the dollar menu example does illustrate is that people have to be discerning stewards of their own resources, however small the costs involved, particularly in times of constraint. JL

Candice Choi reports in the Huffington Post:

That cheeseburger on the value menu may end up costing more than you think.

More Americans Are Opting Out of the Banking System

There are so many of them that there is even a term for it: meet the 'unbanked' population.

How big? 20% of households in the US do not have a bank account. Another 8 or 9% have only one bank account for the entire family.

Two generations worth of declining household incomes, stubborn unemployment and rising transaction fees have made banking uneconomical for many. The banks have contributed to this situation by closing branches in neighborhoods considered demographically undesirable and by raising fees on accounts they do not believe will meet their financial hurdle rates.

The disadvantages to working families in terms of access to loans, mortgages, college financing and car purchases contributes to a growing cycle of alienation and dislocation, Families isolated from mainstream lifestyle choices ultimately become a burden to society in other ways.

The positive aspects of this trend are that such households are no longer as likely to be victimized by unprincipled lenders who stick them with unaffordable lending options whose details are difficult to fathom even for trained attorneys.

There is also a tremendous market opportunity here. While banking industry lobbyists have worked hard to restrict access to this market just in case the industry decides it wants back in, big retailers like Walmart and others have attempted to meet the demand. And just as supermarkets, fast food chains, auto retailers and others have found ways to profit from this segment of the population while providing needed services of above-average quality, so too will entrepreneurial spirits in the financial services industry once the metrics of need and service interpose. JL

Danielle Douglas reports in the Washington Post:

In the aftermath of one of the worst recessions in history, more Americans have limited or no interaction with banks, instead relying on check cashers and payday lenders to manage their finances, according to a new federal report.

Does Listening to Music at Work Make You More or Less Productive?

Is your work cognitively demanding?

Because that appears to be the crucial determinant as to whether listening to music makes you more or less productive. If it is, ie, if you actually have to think while you work, rather than performing rote tasks, the research suggests it is more likely than not to be a distraction.

If you 'have' to listen at work, classical or instrumental music is the most conducive (though for those Boomer survivors of the 60s and 70s this probably does not include the 17 minute riff from 'In-a-gadda-da-vida'). Music with singing and lyrics is less beneficial to completing tasks accurately and to quicker output. Singing along is most emphatically not a productivity enhancing activity.

There are, of course, exceptions. 'Well-practiced experts' like surgeons have reported that background music relaxes them and helps them concentrate. Unfortunately, anesthesiologists report that such music is distracting.

There is probably no right answer applicable across all jobs, personalities, age groups, functional specialties, office configurations, shoe sizes or whatever other metrics may influence performance. Knowing that it can be measured is worth remembering the next time someone in the office comments about your expensive headphones. JL

Annie Paul reports in Time:

Music can lift your mood and give you a relaxed focus, but it decreases your performance on cognitively demanding tasks.

How the Peripheral Becomes Central: Apple, Islam, Economics and the Unified Theory of Everything

Second year in a row: Apple introduces a new phone. Which, in many ways, is not all that different from last year's model.

Except for one thing, that most people think is peripheral, literally and figuratively. Until it becomes The Point.

Last year's controversy was about SIRI, the voice-activated assistant that was considered a toy-like after-thought. Except that it dominated the conversation and defined the new model.

This year? The new adapter. Which renders obsolete all previous adapters as well as all the connections to all the other Apple devices you might own, never mind the adapters in all the hip hotels and clubs in the world that finally got around to providing universal Apple connectivity.

Meanwhile, back in the rest of the world that doesn't orient its life around new phones (shrinking though its size and influence may be), there are riots in what last year were considered those brave and praise-worthy peripheral societies that produced the Arab Spring. In Europe, the affluent, central countries like Germany, France and the Netherlands are trying to figure out what to do with the nations no the periphery - Greece, Portugal, Spain et al - that are imploding economically.

So, maybe Apple is doing this as part of some global deep wave theory of change. Maybe the periphery is where the future gets revealed. We thought that convergence was where it was at. The end of history. Universal power sources. One platform fits all. But maybe that was bunk. Maybe Steve was right. His way or the highway. You dont want to fork over another $29 on top of whatever you're paying in yuan, euros, pounds or dollars? Fine, flash your Nokia and Android to your friends and watch them grimace at your humiliation.

Maybe all these seemingly peripheral changes in peripherals reveal something profound about the future as well as conceal something not so profound about the present. Like, that we're not quite ready for whatever the next big thing is but we have to produce a new phone or a new government or a new economic plan to keep our customers/voters happy.

Politics, economics, technology and $29 adapters. Who knew?JL

Andrew Leonard comments in Salon:

A hotly contested presidential election hits the stretch run, a deadly foreign policy crisis breaks out in the Arab world, new census figures prove that the richest Americans are still gaining on everyone else… and yet one of the most alarming stories of the week (judging by my perhaps unbalanced Twitter feed) appears to be the news that Apple’s iPhone 5 will come with a brand new dock connector

What's the Difference Between Invention and Innovation?

The history of technology is replete with stories of companies that had a great idea but didnt know quite what to do with it.

Xerox PARC, the celebrated Silicon Valley-based R&D center is the most famous of these. Its staff and the creative genius they unleashed are legendary in the tech community, both for the brilliance of their inventions - and for the fact that others often benefited far more than did the parent company that paid for it.

There have been other fonts of innovation over the last century including RCA and Bell Labs. But the increasing prominence of Apple's SIRI has drawn attention to a once secretive company whose primary function is to win government contracts in order to help the US military realize its technological dreams.

SRI International, the company that spawned the idea that became SIRI has a distinguished provenance. SRI originally stood for Stanford Research Institute and was the university's research arm. It was eventually spun off in order to provide greater opportunity to become profitable and it has achieved that goal.

SIRI is emblematic of the company's focus on innovation rather than 'mere' invention. The notion is not so much to be the cleverest (though that doesnt hurt)or to come up with cool new stuff, but to be sure that whatever is being created is intended for a market that enables both SRI and its clients to secure a financial return while solving a problem that may enhance other commercial opportunities.

This focus on practical applicability has assured a steady stream of new business while financing ever more audacious experiments that lead to even newer and potentially profitable new fields. It is quite an innovative business model. JL

Dan Friedell reports in Fast Company:

SRI International, the brains behind Apple's Siri, has launched a dozen consumer products since its digital assistant got famous. We venture inside SRI's labs to find out why you haven't you heard of any of them.

Tilt: High Frequency Traders Are Buying Data Ahead of You. Legally.

It is conceivable that some day in the future historians will look back on this era and shake their heads in wonder at the blatantly anti-competitive behavior permitted in the name of efficiency or capitalism or whatever misleading euphemism suffices.

But they wont dare do so now as many of their positions are funded by contributions from the financial services industry.

When even the Wall Street Journal finds it impossible not to comment on the notion that market-moving information is being sold for competitive advantage by the companies that produce it and some of the market makers that regulate and manage it, one begins to sense the size of the current standard deviation from what used to be considered fair play.

Why this is considered reasonable, let alone permissable, remains something of a mystery. Raw financial power explains some of it. The palliative impact of 'market smoothing' allegedly engendered by such sales is another potential benefit often touted in defense of the practice.

But whatever the excuse, the declining participation by retail investors in the equity markets suggests that while the short-term results may be profitable to a few, the long term impact on the market may be less positive for companies looking to raise capital and the nations hoping to see their economies prosper from those investments.JL

Geoffrey Rogow reports in the Wall Street Journal:

Fitch Ratings became the latest provider of market-moving news to streamline a path to high-frequency traders.

Could Technology Kill the Asian Growth Miracle?

What goes around comes around.

China and many other locales in Asia have grown dramatically over the past three decades by providing the manufacturing platform for the western technology boom. Economies have grown, incomes have increased and the global commercial playing field has leveled more than a bit.

But as so often happens, the forces that unleashed this wondrous growth spasm could also be its undoing.

The Chinese are running out of people. As hard as that may be to believe, the increase in incomes across their economy decreases the incentives to move to the huge factories in coastal cities where much of the manufacturing takes place. Reports have already surfaced that Foxconn, chief supplier to Apple, Samsung and other tech companies, has been unable to hire enough workers so has pressed Chinese students to work in its factories involuntarily in order to meet demand for the debut of the latest iPhone.

What this means is that the Asian labor cost advantage is disappearing. Among the solutions is the replacement of workers with robots. Foxconn has stated it plans to install 1 million of them over the next few years.

In addition, as the following article points out, there is a cultural impediment to the sort of innovation that sparked the Silicon Valley/Route 128 revolution of the past few decades. Incremental change is valued more highly than radical change of the sort that sparked the internet era. Though China leads the world in patent applications, many of those are not globally protected, meaning that they are derivative or less impactful than those coming out of western countries. The solution of strong-arming western companies into surrendering intellectual property rights in return for access to the Chinese market is causing disquiet. In the meantime, businesses in the west have used this period to figure out how to prevail using technology to offset their labor cost disadvantage.

Ironically then, the very technological revolution that drove Asian growth may now be sapping its future prospects. JL

Izabella Kaminska comments in FT.com/Alphaville :

We’ve noted on more than one occasion that economists may be missing a trick when it comes to how technology is changing the global economy. More so, that developments like 3D printing, could even pose a black-swan risk for Asia in their own right.

Google and Dynamic Pricing: Patenting Your Propensity to Overpay

This 'dont be evil' thing turns out to be, well, pretty open to interpretation.

Lots of people overpay. Or feel that they do. Buyer's remorse is a common emotion. But it turns out that the propensity to overpay can be identified, managed and even predicted. To the point where Google has patented a means of doing so.

In our current socio-economic state, living by the Golden Rule about doing unto others or being your brother's keeper are about as popular as submitting to the dentist's drill without novocaine. We dont appear to have a lot of sympathy for anyone else. Could be due to our straitened economic circumstances. Or maybe a couple of generations of prosperity have just coarsened us. Whatever the reason, taking advantage of others appears to be considered a fair part of the bargain between buyer and seller.

This is particularly interesting in the internet context: Nigerian investment scams, Chinese IPOs and American political promises all vie for the consumers' attention. But actually patenting ways in which people can be targeted to overpay seems a mite predatory, even by today's morally flexible standards.

The advantage the net has had over tangible, retail commerce is its transparency, convenience and generally lower costs. They are mutually supportive and deeply interwoven. As soon as it is perceived that one of them has been undermined, the others may soon follow. JL

Timothy reports at SlashDot:

A newly-granted Google patent on Dynamic Pricing of Electronic Content describes how information gleaned from your search history and social networking activity can be used against you by providing tell-tale clues for your propensity to pay jacked-up prices to 'reconsume' electronic content, such as 'watching a video recording, reading an electronic book, playing a game, or listening to an audio recording.'

Is Your Workplace Industrialized or Humanized?

The soul-deadening nature of traditional management practices is an easy target.

In fact, it has become a cliche. Insensitive bosses with anger-management problems, inflexible rules, calcified procedures and an overarching culture ripped right out of 'Father Knows Best.'

It is hard to know to what extent that ethos has survived the past 20 years of technological innovation, globalized competition and tsunamis of downsizing that have left a few stunned survivors to complete with the help of a random laptops the tasks that dozens used to accomplish. Certainly the selfishness of senior executive compensation in the face of almost universal economic suffering suggests that the mindset exists even if the practices have been papered over by facile references to team work.

But those who work now, even in the hip, open, collaborative workplaces personified, at least theoretically by Google et al, also risk a different kind of threat. It's root is that very technology and the flexibility it offers. 24-7 can be an opportunity to manage one's own time - or it can mean always on, always tethered.

The notion that Apple products somehow represent freedom of thought and action is more than somewhat diminished by the knowledge of incandescent Jobs-ian verbal abuse of underlings and his demand for total control of the business' every aspect.

The stories coming out of Zynga about megalomaniacal founders and the equally searing management horror stories from a host of other allegedly 'new economy' avatars suggest that the twists of human personality and emotion can transcend even the coolest, most bleeding edge atmosphere.

Technology can set us free. But it can also enslave us. Whether it humanizes or industrializes a workplace has less to do with the devices than with the mindset of those who use them. JL

Jody Thompson comments in the Cali & Jody Blog (hat tip Greg Satell):

Are you a PC or a Mac?

You remember those commercials, right? Talk about the ultimate way of "humanizing" your company. Apple personified it's product as a hip young person you could relate to (at least, who their target market would relate to), and personified their competitor as a stiff, boring spreadsheet geek who didn't "get it."

Rhetoric versus Revolution: Why Tablet Prices Need to Drop Below $100

'The revolution will not be televised.'

That was the name of a 1970 song and poem by Gil Scott-Heron. What he meant was that people could not be passive, sitting and waiting for change to come without their participation.

It is noteworthy in the context of Amazon's announcement of new tablets that directly challenge Apple's iPad - and of the annual circus surrounding the debut of whatever new device Apple is promoting this season. And it goes without saying that there is a small irony in the timing of such new product introductions to coincide - intentionally or not - with fashion week.

The point is that for the next communications revolution to begin, prices are going to have to drop below $100 so that usage becomes truly universal. At those levels, the mobile phone IS the computer in China and many other parts of the world. But for more robust exchanges of information that may actually become knowledge, and even wisdom, broader accessibility will be necessary. And that will only come with broader affordability.JL

Vivek Wadhwa comments in the Washington Post:

The high definition screens, faster processors, and enhanced Wi-Fi capabilities of Amazon’s new Kindle Fire tablets are making big news. The price of these devices is getting even more attention: $199 for the 7-inch and $499 for the top-of-the-line 8.9 inch 4G LTE-enabled models. Amazon will undoubtedly sell millions of these.

But I’m not excited.Here’s why: These tablets won’t catalyze the revolution that is waiting to happen. The magic will happen when the price-per-unit drops below $100 on its way towards $50

Age and Insight: The Eureka Moments Are Happening Later

It is curious that in the age of connectivity, 24-7 hyperactivity and, well, the omnipresence of raw speed in all human endeavors that the age at which we invent things is getting older and slower.

Is it because we have so much more information to process? That we have gummed up the innovation works with all sorts of superfluous check-points, from dissertation defense to publication vetting to research oversight and scientific experimentation review? Or has the rush caused us to slow down our thought processes in order make sense of it all?

Whatever the combination of answers may be, the evidence of the slowdown is manifest. As the following article asserts, the average age for Nobel Prize winners in various scientific categories has risen by an average of six years. And more in certain disciplines.

There are those who think we should be worried. That this suggests a drag on innovation and economic growth. But others think it may be that technology has obviated the need for some aspects of scientific research by shortening the research cycle and focusing more on commercial outcomes than academic rigor.

It may simply be that cognitive capacity is achieved earlier in new fields than in more established ones. Or it may be that we are acknowledging how much less we know than we thought we did. JL

David Wessel comments in the Wall Street Journal:

Conventional wisdom is that big scientific discoveries are made by the supple minds of the young. Albert Einstein famously said, "A person who has not made his great contribution to science before the age of 30 will never do so."

Tech Design and Human Behavior: When Did Addiction Become a Good Thing?

Ethics and design.

The issue has been lurking out there for a while but we've ignored it, largely because we're so fascinated by the marriage of technological wizardry with behavioral manipulation. It's astonishing what people can be convinced to do without their realizing it.

But how is this different from what marketers have done for ages? From the earliest dealers in grains and fruits, to rug merchants, encyclopedia sales and TV pitchmen ('call now, operators are standing by...'). And why now?

Well, scale is one reason. The 'net has given us the ability to reach vast new audiences instantaneously. Unlike TV or radio or other media, there is no regulatory oversight governing truthfulness. So, the impact may be greater and the damage, when it occurs, both more widespread and harder to correct.

Secondly, there is that queasy human reaction to being manipulated without realizing it. Tell us partial truths, disguise the downside? Caveat emptor; let the buyer beware. Do your homework, check your sources, take responsibility. That is the mantra of the new age. Corporations have offloaded that burden on the rest of us, claiming somewhat virtuously, that self-governance makes for a stronger economy and probably makes us better people, too.

We could quibble with that, but in the service of greater convenience we have largely capitulated. The problem in technology and internet commerce comes with the absence of transparency. The lack of any explanation, let alone sufficient. Is it legal? Probably. Is it moral? Depends who you ask. Is it a positive development? We'll have to see. But we have some experience with this in the world's housing markets: Ireland, Spain, China, the UK, the US. And it ended up crashing the economy. The questions raised by the article below therefore pose some worthy questions the implications of the answers to which hit us where we live. JL

Jason Dreha comments in GigaOm:

Tech companies have become increasingly adept at manufacturing desire, but to what end? Behavior designer Jason Hreha argues that the industry needs to seriously consider the impact of its products. Are we helping our users lead better lives, or are we making them compulsive, impatient and distractible?

How Green Is My Cloud? Tech Companies, Cloud Computing and Energy Use

This started as a weak signal. But the heavens are starting to rumble thunderously.

The questions about the energy usage required to power cloud computing were initially considered by many the concern of an obsessed minority. Their worries were sublimated by fascination with the technological potential, the financial opportunity and the strategic implications for corporate competition.

But this is becoming a mainstream concern. Executives take pains to address it even when not asked. Press releases emerge. Articles are written. Analysts assess the countervailing claims.

The reason, as so often happens with environmental and sustainability issues in business, has less to do with what is right and more to do with what is efficient. There are two primary impacts: one is cost-related. Energy use reduces margins, which reduces free cash flow and affects however one measures profit. Which, in turn, impacts stock price performance, compensation and executive longevity. Talk about hitting someone where it hurts...

The second set of issues has to do with brand and reputation. Most tech companies, more than other corporations, like to be thought of as clean. That is usually how their founders were brought up and how their education and their peer-group have inclined them. It is also how many of their customers and, increasingly, investors like to be perceived. So in the global battle for pre-eminence in the tech sphere, every new issue is an opportunity and a threat. The opportunity is to convince others that what you are doing is smart AND good. The threat is that something bad will happen, you will be blamed, your brand sullied, your honor besmirched. Which might also affect stock price and those related factors.

Instinct and self-interest will prevail. The companies are playing catch-up because this was not top-of-mind when the trend broke. But they get the message. And they know that if they falter, plenty of observers will feel free to announce it to the world. JL

Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss comment in Scientific American:

Why is Greenpeace upset with some leading tech companies for so-called “dirty cloud computing?

Twilight of the Elites? America After Meritocracy

Has America been failed by its elites?

Or more to the point, has it been failed by the system that has produced them for the past three quarters of a century?

That system emerged to replace historical reliance on caste and privilege. It was formulated to promote a feature of American life which appeared to be the fairest, most democratic and meritocratic: education. The presumption was that education favored no one who did not have talent, intelligence and the willingness to work to achieve excellence against a common set of standards.

The problem, as Professor Marshall Meyer of the Wharton School noted, is that 'metrics begin to degrade the moment they are announced because everyone affected begins to game them.'

And how.

Universal education may still be available, but there are circles within circles. Private schools, private tutors, legacy admissions to 'need-blind' competitive institutions, cultural biases in nationally-administered standardized tests. And that's just to get to the starting line. To be considered for the elite professions in finance, law, medicine, commerce and yes, even government. Beyond that, the benefits of distinguished lineage have been supplanted by the web of relationships based on school ties, friendships and common experiences.

The sense of entitlement may be all the more entrenched because those so annointed believe that their achievements were merited, not the random luck of bloodlines. As has become clear the system has been gamed and those who have the money or connections prevail.

The bigger problem, however, is the result. That nation is riven by factions who truly despise each other. The economy is faltering, the country's standing in the world has receded and faith in the future is at a low ebb. Cheating and self-dealing are rampant. Investors flee the equity markets because they are so notoriously tilted to favor insiders. Whatever leaders the system was supposed to have produced either did not heed the lessons taught or emerged due to factors other than ability.

So the question is what the post-meritocratic world will look like. Despite their evident disdain for each other, both the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street factions agree that the elite are out only for themselves. And the French, Chinese, Russians, British, et al, have done no better.

What we can say with some assurance, however, is that whatever new system may replace the old - and that is not even certain - a new elite will emerge. What we can hope is that, at least for a time, before they begin to favor their own kith and kin, that they take to heart the lessons from this experience and try to build a more inclusive and effective system than the one they will try to replace. JL

The Samuel Goldman comments in The American Conservative:

“Elite” wasn’t always a dirty word. Before the 19th century, the term described someone chosen for office. Because this typically occurred in the church, the word possessed distinctly ecclesiastical connotations. The pre-Victorians transformed a word imputing religious status to individual persons into a collective noun with class implications. By the 1830s, “elite” referred to the highest ranks of the nobility.

Those meanings are no longer primary.

McDonalds Goes Vegetarian

OK, slightly exaggerated headline.

No, McDonalds is not eliminating meat. Put the epinephrine away and tell the ambulance dispatcher it was all a misunderstanding.

But they are opening their first all vegetarian restaurants. In India.

What's really interesting about this is not that they are opening these two locations in a country where eating meat is a religious taboo for many. Acknowledging local tastes is just common sense when you are a global corporation.

The mind-blowing aspect of this decision is how it may juice their business in the US, Europe and other carnivorously inclined markets. Organics are one of the fastest growing categories in food. As the population ages in most developed countries, the urge to prolong life becomes fiercer. So eating healthier has become a movement, which helps explains the exponential growth of locavore, greens-oriented cuisine.

In addition, businesses have noticed that when they offer products or services for one market, particularly when advertised online, demand emerges in markets for which the items were not intended and in which they are not available. At first.

Levis, among others, noticed this when it created smaller, tighter, less expensive jeans for what it thought was the Chinese market - until orders from other parts of the world starting pouring in.

So Mickey D's may be experimenting in a safe place where they know demand is present. But they have their eye on the prize, which is all those consumers who think the company's offerings have been too fatty and unhealthy. Until now.

And PS, yo. French fries are potatoes. Which are vegetables. So dont be questioning their street cred in this market. JL

The Associated Press reports in the Chicago Tribune:

McDonald's Corp., the fast food chain that brought the hamburger to the world, is opening what may be its first vegetarian-only restaurants.