Posted by Ted Hopton on February 26, 2008
I’m proud that my alma mater, Brown University, has risen to the challenge thrown down by some of her more affluent Ivy League sisters. As described in the NYT,
Brown University is eliminating tuition for students whose parents earn less than $60,000, after decisions by fellow Ivy League universities to bolster financial aid as their endowments grow.
In addition: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Economics, Learning | Tagged: Brown University, college tuition, financial aid, tuition elimination | No Comments »
Posted by Ted Hopton on January 28, 2008
I just added a music player widget in the right column of this blog. It has a few songs that I like loaded in the playlist — click on the play button and listen!
Unfortunately, the selection of songs for this widget is pretty slim. I hoped to include many of my favorites, so as to add an audio dimension to this blog. However, few of my favorite songs were options that I could select.
Music just seems to be an art form that is meant to be shared. But we’re just not there, yet, from an economic perspective. The technology is ready, but the economic models have not been established, and until they are the art is going to be held hostage.
Posted in Economics, Music, Technology | Tagged: Economics, Music, Technology | 1 Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on January 27, 2008
Here’s a news flash: consumption of meat these days is directly tied to consumption of energy. As Michael Bittman (author of a great cookbook that I own, How To Cook Everything, not that I crack it open often . . .), wrote a provocative article in the NYT, “Rethinking the Meat Guzzler.” The essential premise is, reduce consumption of meat, and the effect on energy consumption would be significant:
The two commodities share a great deal: Like oil, meat is subsidized by the federal government. Like oil, meat is subject to accelerating demand as nations become wealthier, and this, in turn, sends prices higher. Finally — like oil — meat is something people are encouraged to consume less of, as the toll exacted by industrial production increases, and becomes increasingly visible.
Bittman is drawing upon Michael Pollan’s work (which he cites later in the article). It is astounding when you really dig into the interdependent web of industrial food production, energy consumption and global economics, not to mention the impact on human, animal and environmental health. Take, for example, this point: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Economics, Environment, Health, Science | Tagged: Economics, Environment, Food, meat, Science | No Comments »
Posted by Ted Hopton on January 27, 2008
Have you heard of “social entrepreneurs”? I hadn’t either, until I read William Kristol’s column in the NYT, “The Age of Ambition.”
Today the most remarkable young people are the social entrepreneurs, those who see a problem in society and roll up their sleeves to address it in new ways. Bill Drayton, the chief executive of an organization called Ashoka that supports social entrepreneurs, likes to say that such people neither hand out fish nor teach people to fish; their aim is to revolutionize the fishing industry. If that sounds insanely ambitious, it is. John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan title their new book on social entrepreneurs “The Power of Unreasonable People.”
It’s an inspiring account, and I recommend you read it. There is more good being done by more people than we generally know, and that’s heartening news.
Posted in Career, Economics, Innovation | Tagged: entrepreneurs, social | 1 Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on January 20, 2008
The Law of Unintended Consequences is a concept that has fascinated me since I learned about it as a child. The irony of good intentions producing disastrous results opened my eyes and showed me that “it’s the thought that counts” was a rather foolish claim to make.
This NYT article, “Unintended Consequences,” by Freakonomics authors Steven Levitt and Stephan Dubner, uses three widely different examples to illustrate this concept in a refreshing way.
But before charging ahead with such plans, the new president might do well to first ask him- or herself the following question: What do a deaf woman in Los Angeles, a first-century Jewish sandal maker and a red-cockaded woodpecker have in common?
Each turns out to be an example, of course, of unintended consequences. Here’s the conclusion: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Economics, Politics, Research | Tagged: Environment, Management, Politics, Research | No Comments »
Posted by Ted Hopton on January 19, 2008
I wouldn’t go so far to call the variety of points made in this NYT article, “So We Thought. But Then Again . . .” contrarian, but they certainly contradict conventional wisdom. Here are the main conclusions the economist author makes:
China is much further from world economic leadership than we may have thought….There has been plenty of talk about “predatory lending,” but “predatory borrowing” may have been the bigger problem. As much as 70 percent of recent early payment defaults had fraudulent misrepresentations on their original loan applications, according to one recent study….
Economists hadn’t known whether digitization would help or hurt music markets; many thought that greater exposure to music and the ease of online access might lead people to buy more. But in 2007 the outcome became clear: people tend to buy their favorite song from an album, online, rather than buy the whole album….
Heat waves may receive more publicity, but it turns out that cold periods — days with an average temperature below 30 degrees —have more significant and longer-lasting effects on human mortality. More people die in cold periods than in homicides.
Posted in Economics, Trends | Tagged: business development, Economics, Health, Music, Research, Technology | No Comments »
Posted by Ted Hopton on January 19, 2008
I knew rising energy prices affected the price of food because so much of the food we consume is transported from where it originates to our convenient grocery stores, and that there were other connections, as well. However, it was news to me to learn what a direct connection there is between the price of oil and scarcity of food in many parts of the world, as this rather depressing article, “An Oil Quandary: Costly Fuel Means Costly Calories,” in the NYT explains.
This is the other oil shock. From India to Indiana, shortages and soaring prices for palm oil, soybean oil and many other types of vegetable oils are the latest, most striking example of a developing global problem: costly food. . . .According to the F.A.O., food riots have erupted in recent months in Guinea, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Senegal, Uzbekistan and Yemen. . . .
A startling change is unfolding in the world’s food markets. Soaring fuel prices have altered the equation for growing food and transporting it across the globe. Huge demand for biofuels has created tension between using land to produce fuel and using it for food. . . .
Many of the hardest-hit victims of rising food prices are in the vast slums that surround cities in poorer Asian nations.
Posted in Economics, Health, Trends | Tagged: Economics, energy, Environment, Trends | No Comments »
Posted by Ted Hopton on January 18, 2008
I haven’t read this book, and I probably won’t, but the book review in the NYT is pretty compelling in and of itself: “Mountains Into Molehills.” I lived in Kentucky for four years, and once I went on a trip to coal country, where I saw first-hand the kind of unnatural destruction that this book is about. It’s tragic in the truest sense of the word.
Posted in Economics, Environment, Ethics, Politics | Tagged: energy, Environment, Ethics, Politics | No Comments »
Posted by Ted Hopton on March 8, 2006
There’s a column in Business 2.0 titled, “A Penny Saved, A Customer Spurned” dated Feb. 24, 2006. It’s an opinion piece about the perils of call center outsourcing, and it makes the case that outsourcing frontline customer service is not a good idea. Agree or disagree, but the controversy isn’t going away.
The debate about outsourcing pros and cons has been covered widely (and not always accurately) by the media for a long time now. It’s good fodder, since it has emotion-laden elements, and it’s long-running because it’s complex, without a clear and simple conclusion to be drawn.
But underlying the outsourcing debate is the same perception that we face frequently in the popular press: that most customer service delivered by call centers is not what customers want it to be. Although that’s a “perception issue” and none of us can control “the media,” it really does came back to each of us, who in our own little ways have a say in this. Every little bit adds up. What each one of us does to drive positive and improved customer experiences with the call centers we work with counts. Customers out there are keeping score, and right now we’re losing, but there’s still time to mount a comeback, one caller at a time.
call center management
Posted in Call Center Management, Call Centers, Customer Sat, Customer Service, Economics, Media | Tagged: call center, Customer Service, Media, Customer Sat, outsourcing | No Comments »
