BNET1

• The Find: It’s summer and companies everywhere are awash in interns, but one blog warns against reflexively giving these eager, young workers the keys to your company’s social media presence.
• The Source: Church of the Customer Blog.

The Takeaway: When my colleague Stefan Deeran recently suggested putting your summer interns to work on social media projects, many of you gave his advice a hearty thumbs up. The idea makes sense as many Gen Yers are already social media veterans and may be far more tech-savvy than more experienced co-workers, but Church of the Customer reminds us that just because your interns may be confident with Twitter and Facebook that doesn’t mean you should hand over the reins to your youngest team members. Read the rest of this entry »

• The Find: Chris Anderson’s new book Free is raising a firestorm of commentary from the likes of Malcolm Gladwell and Seth Godin, and today Mark Cuban weighs in, arguing that accepting free content is different from accepting freely distributed content.
• The Source: Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban’s response to the furor surrounding Anderson’s Free on Blog Maverick.

The Takeaway: Malcolm Gladwell put the smack down on Chris Anderson, the prophet of Free, in the New Yorker this week, kicking up a frenzy of defense and rebuttal online, including a piece from Seth Godin entitled “Malcolm is wrong.” Gladwell pokes holes in Anderson’s contention that “information wants to be free,” pointing out that while the cost of content itself may now be close to zero, when the distribution is considered as well as the huge volume of ideas we consume, the costs amount to many hundreds of millions a dollars a year (”YouTube’s bandwidth costs in 2009 will be three hundred and sixty million dollars.”) He also points out that YouTube, that paragon of the free future, lost so much money last year that, if it were a bank, it would be eligible for TARP funds. Read the rest of this entry »

• The Find: In an empathetic post one blogger offers employees looking to get through the crisis four ways to focus on helping their stressed out managers rather than obsessing about their own worries.
• The Source: Anita Bruzzese writing on Cube Rules.

The Takeaway: Actors suffering from self-consciousness are sometimes told to focus on their co-stars to take their attention off their nerves and boost their performance. This week author Bruzzese offers some similar advice for workers who are stressing about getting out of this recession with their jobs: it’s not all about you. Read the rest of this entry »

• The Find: No, says new research which suggests that paying for performance can actually reduce motivation and overall productivity.
• The Source: Research by professor Sam Bowles of the Behavioral Sciences Program at the Santa Fe Institute to be presented at the august London School of Economics.

The Takeaway: Managers who get extra cash for results are likely to have increased motivation to meet or exceed their targets, or so the traditional thinking goes, and this is sure to add up to better results for the firm. All wrong, says this latest research which analyzed 51 separate experimental studies of financial incentives. So what does performance related pay actually accomplish? Read the rest of this entry »

• The Find: Organizations may be slashing travel budgets to cut costs, but new research concludes that face-to-face meetings can actually improve a company’s practices and processes back home.
• The Source: The Economist’s Gulliver blog, commenting on a study by Mark Mortensen of the MIT Sloan School of Management and Tsedal Beyene of Harvard Business School ponderously entitled, “Firsthand Experience and The Subsequent Role of Reflected Knowledge in Cultivating Trust in Global Collaboration.”

The Takeaway: We’ve blogged before about how cutting travel costs is one way to cut expenses when budgets are tight, but this week a new paper offers evidence to support critics of limiting travel. The academic paper by Beyene and Mortensen looks to answer what, if any, advantages face-face meetings have over alternatives such as video conferencing, and is based on 47 interviews and 140 survey responses. What did the researchers conclude? Read the rest of this entry »

• The Find: A number of Wharton professors are criticizing both the speed at which President Obama’s new regulatory plan was unveiled and some of the ideas it left out.
• The Source: Knowledge@Wharton.

The Takeaway: President Obama’s financial regulation proposal is only a few days old and already it has plenty of critics. On the left there are worries that the plan goes soft on the corporations that got us into the current financial mess, while the right worries that more red tape may stifle any recovery. But two professors from Wharton have a whole other complaint: the proposals, whatever their merits or limitations, were rushed. Read the rest of this entry »

• The Find: Compared to their counterparts around the globe, U.S. managers are both more stressed about the recession and more optimistic about the future of their careers.
• The Source: A global survey by BPI, a European management and human resources consulting firm.

The Takeaway: When BPI asked more than 8,000 managers in 14 countries how they were coping with the crisis, the answers turned up a uniquely American paradox: U.S. managers “are more stressed about the recession than their global counterparts, but they are among the most optimistic about their professional future.” Read the rest of this entry »

• The Find: Building relationships is a key business skill, but if you’re a leader who failed to learn the basics of creating lasting and trusting friendships in elementary school, one book aims to offer a refresher course.
• The Source: Keith Ferrazzi, CEO of Ferrazzi Greenlight and best-selling author discusses his latest book Who’s Got Your Back: The Breakthrough Program to Build Deep, Trusting Relationships That Create Success—and Won’t Let You Fail with blogger and venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki on the American Express Open Forum blog.

The Takeaway: Business may be all about relationships, but when some of us think about these connections, our minds go more towards the realm of networking, where getting to know someone often ends up being more about identifying what you can do for them and what they can do for you. That sort of connection may sometimes be useful, but it’s not the essential one for success, argues Ferrazzi. Instead, he recommends a back to basics approach, advocating actual relationships with three or more true friends who will tell you the truth and loyally have your back. Read the rest of this entry »

• The Find: A much buzzed about new book argues that teamwork is for suckers, and those who really want to get the most out of their careers should become “soloists.”
• The Source: A post on Knowledge@Wharton about the aptly titled new book, I Hate People!: Kick Loose from the Overbearing and Underhanded Jerks at Work and Get What You Want Out of Your Job.

The Takeaway: What causes burn-out? Long hours? Lack of management support? Lack of caffeine? No, argue Jonathan Littman and Marc Hershon, the authors of I Hate People. “Workers don’t burn out just because they work too hard. Workers burn out because of people.” According to this provocative duo your co-workers aren’t potential collaborators or fellow travelers who can shoulder some of your work burden, oh no, Read the rest of this entry »

• The Find: Being out of work doesn’t have to mean a yawning gap in your resume; one blog is offering ten ways to demonstrate your worth and keep your skills sharp while you’re out of work.
• The Source: A recent post on blog Business Pundit.

The Takeaway: Gaps on a resume can be off putting to hiring managers, with recent research revealing that in as little as six months, unemployment starts to carry a serious stigma with prospective employers. But if you’ve been out of work for four or five months and are rapidly approaching the point where the unaccounted for time starts to hurt your chances of getting hired, you shouldn’t panic. As Business Pundit points out there are things you can do to keep your skills sharp and your resume current. Here are ten: Read the rest of this entry »