Guerilla Economics

Puritan Gift

Treasure trove of articles on the Hopper bros. Puritan Gift site, especially on where quality comes from. The book is a very overdue corrective to the "management as empirical science" school. In fact, if anything, it really needs a companion volume that can truly point out that the field of management science is less scientific than homeopathy, and homeopathy at least isn't going to do any harm.

I stand with the FT in my two thumbs up verdict on the book. However, I have a supposition that as yet I can't get round to proving that the real position on management and long run productivity is even more depressing, that is that long run productivity growth is very nearly a constant and that no regime changes it. I'll have another look at the data here.

CSR

Worth signing in to Knowledge at Wharton for the insight: Moral Intelligence. From TFA

Without a moral anchor, leaders can be charismatic and influential in a profoundly destructive way. As Primal Leadership emphasizes, truly effective leadership is "grounded in a shared set of constructive values." Without knowledge of those values -- in other words, moral intelligence -- the skills of emotional intelligence are ultimately ineffective in promoting high performance.

From the Strategist's Brain

Great article on Porter's return to Strategy and competitiveness.

Von Clausewitz homepage. (The great Prussian military strategist has a lot of interesting stuff to say about business.)

Art of War online. (Note this was originally an eidetic text and has a hell of a lot of stuff that's not immediately comprehensible. It's also got some stuff in it that was meant to be incomprehensible to all but adepts)

Time management for anarchists

Be your own boss and treat yourself like the vermin you are!!!!

Time management for anarchists is a web movie on how to be more productive under the assumption that you don't want some besuited slimeball telling you how to.

It is very useful.

Admin

So, a few things:

1) It looks like Portico has some teething troubles, so bear with us all! I'm still getting "how do I register?" emails and turnout was way down. I'll be looking at things and seeing how everything holds together.

2) On the same tip, coursework outline etc will be up tomorrow. Sorry for the delay!

3) If anyone is interested in the idea of Juche, there is a group in England dedicated to the study of the works of the Dear Leader. They have a web presence here.

Cheers, see you Tuesday

P.

What makes us tick

Produced by the mighty John Sutherland, You tubed into two parts.

This one is to edumacate the average American worker into the ways of the average American Stockmarket. Ignore the slightly naive and hokey way (and I admit that I'm asking a lot of you) and it's broadly accurate (notice it's a little, er, circumspect on the risk reward trade off).

In Part One we follow the oil drum manufacturing company to its $20Million flotation. Note that it floats with a track record of business. The idea that markets might allow companies without a record to float is surprisingly recent!

Part Two takes us up to a trade on the market, and then leaves with a pretty cute coda...Yes that's when risk gets mentioned. In the SMALLPRINT!

The original is there for your general perusal in the Prelinger Archives.