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POPSOvercoming Failure A nice article on keeping failure in perspective. Life is a journey and the road taken isn't always the right one.
6
POPSManaging Knowledge Means Managing Oneself Drucker is a genius. Basic sense of the article is that to manage organizational knowledge, you need to know what to value. Values are personal. Its an intriguing and thoughtful article worth reading.
4
POPSSupply Chains in Space! Leave it to the brainiacs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to think about the provisioning of interplanetary fixed based stations. Engineers at MIT, Olivier de Weck and David Simchi-Levi have created a tool called SpaceNet, which models movement of freight between Earth and stations on the moon. With transit times of up to 9 months on a mission to Mars, supply chain execution in space would be difficult. Perhaps the moon will serve as a staging area for the future! Now how long until FedEx or DHL start advertising interplanetary Express services? When it absolutely positively has to get there...in 10 months!
3
POPSChanging Your Thoughts This is a very neat article. It deals with confidence and how to memorize written material. I have to think actors practice something similar.
3
POPSHow some Hippies got Rich... Cool story of how 3 folks with a good idea backed into a business that made them into millionaires. Kinda like the Ben and Jerry story.
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POPSEconomics 101 The cornerstone of Harvard professor N. Gregory Mankiw’s introductory economics textbook, Principles of Economics, is a synthesis of economic thought into Ten Principles of Economics. Anybody who is a Harvard professor is obviously a very smart dude. Thats why its particularly funny, when another PhD, turned comedian, takes the piss out of a Harvard guys published work. Knowing that a professors tenure is usually based in part on published works, one has to wonder if Dr. Yoram Bauman, Ph.D's stand up routines "count" for tenured publication? (Inquiring minds want to know!)
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POPSChina is the Market... Investment in Chinese supply chain infrastructure continues rapid expansion with DHL announcing a new multi-million dollar investment and FedEx spending 400 mil to buy out their general agent DTW. Walmart meanwhile buys a China hypermart chain with 89 locations. China is the market..no longer just the export factory location.
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POPSTop Supply Chain Opportunities in 2007 Nice article discussing possibilities of manufacturing coming back "onshore" and trade agreements etc. What goes around comes around. Especially if China floats its currency.
2
POPS6 Startup Lessons For The Year 2007 A short history of startups on the Internet suggests that everything starts off with a single category, which is then naturally subdivided into more categories as the number of competitors rise. Division is a process that is unstoppable. To survive, startups must position themselves to be different, and the only way to do that today is to carve as narrow a niche as possible. The article that follows dictates the immutable laws all startups must follow for the sake of survival.
2
POPSBuying Postage Stamps at a Discount! Now heres an extremely clever idea. In order to beat USPS rate hikes, buy old stamps at a discount from Stamp and Coin Dealers! Dan Pritchett at Logos Bible Software found a creative way to make a deal with a local stamp and coin dealer to not only buy old stamps at a discount but get his invoices hand stamped to boot! This idea wouldn't work for large businesses, but if you're an entrepreneur with more modest billing and invoicing needs, this idea has merit.
1
POPSUSPS: Genius at Work This is news from the Bizarro World. The US Postal Service has decided to fix long waits in line at the local post office by..removing the clocks. The theory is people won't know how long they waited, therefore it won't seem so long. Thats our government at work folks. I guess postal workers haven't heard of watches, or mobile phones or PDA's with chronometers. I wonder what the government did with those 37000 clocks? I bet they gave them to the IRS. Check this clipmark to find out.
1
POPSNRF: Container Traffic Starting to Build at Retail Ports The National Retail Federation issued a press release highlighting container traffic growth at major ports used by major US retailers. The NRF's "porttracker" follows activity at the ports of Los Angeles/Long Beach, Oakland, Tacoma and Seattle on the West Coast, and New York/New Jersey, Hampton Roads, Charleston and Savannah on the US East Coast. Container traffic growth for February, typically the lowest volume month for the year, is up 10 percent over February 2006. This years peak season volume should reach crescendo in July, 2007 based on current projections. The National Retail Federation is the largest Retail Trade Association in the world.
1
POPS100 Percent Cargo Inspection: Part Deux Congress apparently didn't read my article of April 7th, 2007 on the practical difficulties of 100 percent cargo inspection called for under House bill HR-1. HR-1 requires 100 percent cargo inspection of all air and ocean cargo. Forget that we don't have the current technology to perform the scanning. Forget that there is no clearly defined mandate for what's to be scanned. Forget that it will take a loooonnnngg while to figure out the union rules on how this will take place. The one concession I can see in the passed bill is that rather than implementing this deal by the end of 2010, it has a 5 year implementation window with the ability of the government to extend the deadline 2 years...
1
POPSVirtual Inventory: A Reality for some Retailers.
I spend a lot of time in airline seats. Invariably I wind up looking at the Sky Mall catalog. You know the one. It has hundreds of the coolest items, like spiked sandals for aerating your yard. These are items that are fun to look at but sometimes hard to legitimize for purchase. Nevertheless, people do buy. Sky Mall is a marketing company. If you buy from them the order is processed then transmitted to a vendor for drop shipment to your home or office. The system works well. Two years ago I bought two Christmas presents on Sky Mall. The process worked great. I ordered on-line and the shipment arrived promptly via parcel carrier straight from the vendor. When the item didn’t fit, I processed a return directly through Sky Mall. I was able to return the item with no problem with a credit back to my American Express card. The whole concept of drop shipping or maintenance of a “virtual” inventory was one of the basic ideas behind many dot.coms in the early 20
1
POPSWhats Next? McOil? In the quest for alternative fuels, it seems that there will be a new use for rendered animal fats. Tyson Foods, a large food conglomerate with big interests in poultry especially, is working with Conoco Phillips to develop diesel fuel products from rendered animal fats. While acknowledged not to be a major fuel alternative, just think what might happen if a fast food chain like McDonalds started a conversion program similar to this one? A chain of fuel stations entirely supplied with McGas and McOil? I wonder if animal fats can be traded as a commodity?
1
POPSStartup Venture Toolbox A great site for evaluating starting your own business. From proof of concent to soliciting VC funding, good practical advice.
1
POPSENTREPRENEURIAL DEATH TRAPS How to avoid the classic entrepreneurial mistakes. Scary accurate real life advice on how to avoid fundamental mistakes in startup businesses.
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POPSThe Wal*Mart "Category" Killer Article. This is an old 2003 article, but I think its worth reading again. This talks about selling too much to one customer...and making a deal with the devil in doing so. This doesnt just apply to Walmart and i think since 2003 Walmart has realized it has the power to kill its vendors. (which helps nobody.) Certainly it did not motivate vendors to help WM with their RFID initiative.
1
POPSCharacter:: The Single Most Important Factor Character is the single most important factor in life. What do you do when nobody is looking? Its also a huge factor in whether you get promoted, or even considered for a job. Its the basis on which your parents taught you made real.
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