Shocking, but true.
Vickie Elmer at WashingtonPost.com reports on a new Stanford University study which indicates that highly connected individuals may be less able to make the right ethical choices in the workplace. Apparently their well-connectedness makes them overconfident that they know what their colleagues” thinking will be when it comes to ethical decisions. The [...]

I enjoyed tonight’’s talk by Peter Thiel at NYC Junto, on “How New Technologies Thwart Government and Promote Freedom”. Junto is a libertarian-focused discussion group organized by Victor Niederhoffer. I”ve been following Peter’’s writing for a while, since we overlap directly in our interests in investing and in online networks. Peter is President of Clarium [...]

I”ve recently talked with a few people about ”social commerce”—the idea that our online business activities will both reflect and in part be driven by our personal social network. My coauthor Scott Allen recently did a market research study on “Transactional Trust in Social Commerce”, which provides some context on this.
For example, [...]

There’’s a great write-up of danah boyd in Financial Times, which labels her the high priestess of internet friendship. I thought they did a great job, with the exception of not respecting her preference of not capitalizing her name.
In addition to profiling danah, the article also chronicles the development of Friendster and MySpace, and others, [...]

“People who access the Internet for what have become routine functions — sending emails, writing blogs, and posting photos and information about themselves on social networking sites — do not realize how much of their personal privacy they put at risk, according to Wharton faculty and legal experts. Nor, they add, have the courts fully [...]

Via Wharton’’s newsletter:
It’’s always been assumed that when employees leave their companies to join other ones that all their knowledge and experience leave with them. But new research suggests that, at least in the high-tech field, firms can wind up gaining access to the knowledge being generated at their former colleague’’s new place. The results [...]

I”ll be speaking in London next week and hope that you will join us:
Straight from the Horse’’s Mouth:
How Professional Investors Elicit Maximum Information in Minimum Time from Industry Sources

Sponsored by the Harvard Business School Club of London
Thursday, September 7, 6:30pm
Offices of McKinsey & Co., 1 Jermyn Street near Piccadilly Circus, London
RSVP and prepayment: http://www.hbsa.org.uk/cgi/hbs?do=index&page=event&event=222

Cost: £10.00
“Interviewing [...]

From Harvard Business School Working Knowledge:
The researchers identified four successful tactics for obtaining stretchwork that were common to both groups:
* Differentiate competence. Anyone hoping to advance must distinguish his or her performance on the job. This is particularly true, however, for contract workers—because they are paid for each short-term job, their [...]

Many business users of social networking sites have heard Mark Granovetter’’s 1973 paper, The Strength of Weak Ties, which concluded that “weak ties”, rather than “strong ties”, were more helpful in finding a job. This is often used as an argument to justify connecting with as many people as possible in social networking sites, even [...]

HBS Professor Andrei Hagiu is an expert on multi-sided markets, and recently interviewed me on that topic: Market Platform Dynamics–Catalyst Conversation: Conversation with David Teten. His site requires that you submit an email address to read the article (but I should note that he doesn”t actually test if the email address is functional.)

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