Emerging Management Paradigms

Good post on what we discussed in class—the food industry needs to come up with food that is both affordable and healthy. Morten

This concept is pretty successful in Spain, it all starts with the following observation: In developed countries, if something is hurting you, there are pills to alleviate the pain, but what happens with the people that do not have pills to cure themselves?

Using this concept, Médicos sin Fronteras   (Doctors without Borders) in Spain started a campaign to sell a medication to treat other’s pain.

They are selling mint candies in pharmacies all over Spain and the people who bought them help with money to development countries, especially in Africa, funding projects to treat real diseases.

Some numbers from the campaign:

• 15,000 pharmacies working with the product
• 90,000,000 watched the campaign
• Between the 10 best selling medications in Spain.
• 1,300,000 euros in the first months of the campaign.

Watch the Video (in Spanish) http://youtu.be/9v2pR4qv4eM

A Georgia-based tech company , Renmatix, as profiled in the New York Times today for its new approach to alternative energy that utilizes only pressurized water in its conversion processes and wood chips. The company is still in its infancy, having moved from a lab-scale to opening a pilot scale plant in 2009.

It’s still too early to tell if the company will do well, but it’s product appears to have the do good part down.

“With federal aid for green-tech startups under assault in Washington, Tesla Motors took to the webs last week touting how its $465 million federal loan had helped create hundreds of jobs — but it didn’t reveal that it’s now asking for more government money. They also won’t reveal why they want it or how much they’re asking for.”

http://jalopnik.com/5843937/tesla-motors-secretly-asks-for-more-government-money

This article talks about Pepsi’s effort to increase chickpea production in Ethiopia. It’s interesting that despite the “good” benefits that this will provide to Ethiopians, the author points out how the company will benefit financially in the long run if this venture is successful. This brings up the question of motives and whether or not that’s a key part of determining whether a company is really doing good.

Pepsi also has other healthy ventures in the works, including a sustainable farming effort in China. I wonder if this model of investing in healthy efforts to balance out the unhealthy profit makers will be one for other companies to follow.

kristine

The Good Company Index looks at the top 100 highest-grossing U.S. based companies that are publicly traded and rates them in three categories: good employer, good seller and good steward.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2011/09/16/the-most-responsible-companies-another-ranking/

kristine

We talked about renting bicycles in New York and Paris in our class. Clear Channel Communications is an interesting company behind many of this kind of bike systems in European cities including Paris and Oslo.

Their Business Model for running city bike system in Oslo is simple. Everybody who wants to ride a bike pays a 90 kr ($18) yearly subscription and the rest of the income comes from the ads on the bicycles. They do not receive any other subsidies from the state.

In Oslo, a city with population of 500,000 Clear Channel has deployed over 100 rental hubs with 8-24 bikes each. The system is simple to use too: pick up your bike at any of the hubs, use it for a maximum of 3 hours and drop it off at any hub before midnight. Since the very beginning the system has been very popular and Clear Channel constantly increases number of hubs and bikes to satisfy the increasing demand.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo_Bysykkel
http://www.visitoslo.com/en/the-city-bikes-are-here.49108.283193r4d6.tln.html

Leslaw

Going into the doing well in the workplace part of the course here’s an article about working remotely and the studies and the psychology behind the practice. Despite many benefits including fewer cars on the road, less money spent on offices, and an opportunity for employees to be closer to home telecommuting is still generally looked down upon.  I don’t believe that we should completely replace large offices with home offices, but it is quite amazing that the jobs where the ability to work from home already exists and people would want to use that opportunity feel pressured not to take that opportunity.

Some good quotes:

“Some bosses think if they can’t see you working, you’re not working,” he says. “If you’re worried about losing your job, you’re going to come into the office every chance you get.”

“Still, telework has clear benefits. For the employer, it can save office space, utilities and overhead for employee services. From the worker, it creates more hours for life or desk work. It reduces travel costs. It has external benefits, like less traffic and quicker travel for commuters. We talk a lot about building more efficient public transportation, but the most efficient public transportation is the technology that lets you work from where you sleep.”

kay

An adaptation from Dan Pinks talk on motivation..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc&feature=channel

Naila

Good article on kickstarter helping startups that otherwise would not hhave a chance. Morten