Business Archives: Jan-Mar 2009
Glaxo shares 800 patents, cuts prices to help poor
(Ben Hirschler, Reuters) GlaxoSmithKline Plc will share more than 800 drug patents with others hunting new cures for neglected tropical diseases, in an unusual departure for an industry famous for protecting its intellectual property. The world's second-largest drugmaker also said on Tuesday it was cutting the cost of 110 patented medicines -- for a range of conditions from malaria to asthma -- by an average of 45 percent from next week.
Tweeting Food Truck Draws L.A.'s Hungry Crowds
(Ben Bergman, NPR) Forget Spago Beverly Hills. The hottest place to eat in Los Angeles right now serves food out of a truck and owes a large part of its success to Twitter. Kogi, which offers a unique combination of Mexican and Korean food, is a modern variation of the taco trucks that have long been popular on the streets of L.A.
State farms prove fertile ground for exotic produce
(Andrew Ryan, Boston Globe) The aji dulce pepper seedlings sprouting in a 120-degree greenhouse here will have the same sweet, mild bite as those grown in Puerto Rico. On Martha's Vineyard, the 1,000 jilo plants germinating on Jamie Norton's farm will bloom with plump, oval-shaped eggplants that shimmer with an emerald color so common in Brazil. And at farmers' markets this summer from Coolidge Corner to Marblehead, the boc choi, fuzzy gourd, and pea tendrils sold at Sheng Lor's stand will attract shoppers no longer intimidated by Asian produce.
Rock, paper, tournament
(Alana Semuels, L.A. Times) Reporting from Panama City, Fla. -- The one they call Naco faces his opponent, fist raised, trying to ignore TV cameras, jeers from spring-break revelers and women in itsy-bitsy bikinis a few yards away. Standing in the center of a boxing ring on a stage erected on the beach, the diminutive Syracuse University sophomore is tied, one best-of-three set apiece, in the USA Rock Paper Scissors League's inaugural collegiate tournament.
New San Jose non-profit helps low-income women start businesses
(Karen de Sá, San Jose Mercury News) An antidote to the recession's pummeling of the poor is hard at work in a set of freshly painted Silicon Valley office suites. Beginning this month, dozens of women are stealing precious evening hours to gather in those offices for study sessions that will help transform them from low-wage or unemployed workers into budding entrepreneurs. The Women's Initiative nonprofit — long a fixture in other Bay Area communities — has just opened shop in San Jose, where in the coming year more than 500 low-income women will receive professional training and a dose of spirit-raising needed to launch their own businesses.
'Dismissal helped me get going,' says banker Ian Meiers
(Catherine Boyle, Times Online) Ian Meiers, 29, has gone from adding up figures to measuring up other men for suits. After joining Barclays from university in 2002 he had been working in the company’s investment management side when it ran into trouble. “Being made redundant was a horrible feeling,” he said. “I especially sympathize with anyone being made redundant at the moment who is also unsure of what they’re going to do.”
McDonald's gets a lift out of new coffee
(Sydney Morning Herald) Coffee sales at McDonald's have jumped 20 per cent since it started selling environmentally friendly coffee last year - proof that good deeds are rewarded with higher sales. In May the fast food chain switched the coffee in its McCafe stores to beans from South American plantations certified by the New York environmental organization, Rainforest Alliance.
Three Ways to Green Up Your Office on the Cheap
(Joel Makower, Scientific American) Although there's no standard definition for an environmentally responsible office, most people would define it in common sense terms: a work space that uses the least amount of energy and other resources, creates the least amount of waste, and provides a healthy environment for the people working there. The idea that being green requires untold expense and inconvenience is a fallacy born of stereotypes.
Merck gives malaria drug to non-profit group
(Ben Hirschler, Reuters) Merck & Co is donating an experimental anti-malarial medicine to a not-for-profit research organization in the latest example of drugmakers stepping up efforts to address health issues in poor countries.
Sounders FC debut kicks off project for aid to African kids
(Kristi Heim, Seattle Times) As Seattle's first major-league soccer team debuts Thursday, a new project is fusing the world's game with the region's penchant for global humanitarian work. If soccer can capture so much of the world's attention, says Cliff McCrath, it can spark connections between fans in Seattle and kids in Africa. McCrath, a legendary former coach at Seattle Pacific University, has forged a partnership between Seattle's new soccer team and one of the world's largest nonprofits for children.
Garbage-muncher powers offices
(Darren Garnick, Boston Herald) Employees who smuggle their household trash into the office dumpster are usually considered scoundrels and cheapskates. Not so if you happen to work for InfoSciTex Energy’s Stu Haber. The Waltham CEO has a voracious appetite for garbage - once even going as far as recruiting employees to drop off their stuffed Glad and Hefty bags at the loading dock.
An independent bookseller stars in her own fairy tale
(Sarah More McCann, Christian Science Monitor) Here, amid the strollers and nannies and crawling babies, a giant coat tree with tiny coats, and one little boy howling that he won’t, he refuses, to leave, two woolly sheep sit quietly alongside a warren of bunnies. Across the room, there’s a donkey, a scarlet macaw, several princes and princesses, a dinosaur herd, and a small schooner’s worth of pirates, their hair tied neatly in matching kerchiefs.
Foot massage gains toehold in SoCal
(John Rogers, Associated Press) Ching Lau is already the sole man of Southern California, but he won't be satisfied until every American has beaten a path to the door of a foot massage parlor. For Lau isn't just a businessman, he's a man on a mission. His quest: to spread the ancient Chinese art of having one's feet dunked in steaming hot tubs of water, then pinched, poked and prodded, all in the name of good health.
Green Beer for Fewer Greenbacks
(Coco Ballantyne, Scientific American) You have probably heard of green buildings, green cars and, perhaps, even green phones. But were you aware that green beer is flowing from the taps of some U.S. breweries, and not the kind for St. Patrick's Day tomorrow? Among the leaders of the movement is Lucky Labrador Brewing Company in Portland, Ore., which for the past year has been saving big bucks by using solar energy to heat water used in the brewing process.
Microsoft did the math, added her to the board
(Alana Semuels, L.A. Times) The president of Harvey Mudd College learned to love mathematics while traveling the world, helped build a Canadian university's computer sciences department and recently learned to ride a skateboard.
Twenty years of the world wide web: What's the score?
(The Economist) “Information Management: A Proposal”. That was the bland title of a document written in March 1989 by a then little-known computer scientist called Tim Berners-Lee who was working at CERN, Europe’s particle physics laboratory, near Geneva. Mr Berners-Lee (pictured) is now, of course, Sir Timothy, and his proposal, modestly dubbed the world wide web, has fulfilled the implications of its name beyond the wildest dreams of anyone involved at the time.
The United States of Entrepreneurs
(The Economist) For all its current economic woes, America remains a beacon of entrepreneurialism. Between 1996 and 2004 it created an average of 550,000 small businesses every month. Many of those small businesses rapidly grow big. The world’s largest company, Wal-Mart, was founded in 1962 and did not go public until a decade later; multi-million dollar companies such as Google and Facebook barely existed a decade ago.
Company shares $9 million with employees
(AP) Eleven-year FreeWave Technologies Inc. employee Melanie Duran says the wireless data radio maker is a great place to work. But you can judge for yourself. The Boulder-based company says it has had profits every month since it hired its first employee in 1995. There have been no layoffs. Employees get company-funded retirement plans and bonuses based on profits and growth.
Brit writes iPhone app in bedroom
(Dan Whitworth, BBC) Since the launch of Apple app store, the number of applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch has boomed. There are now 15,000 different applications which have been downloaded more than 500 million times. But the success of these apps is not just limited to Apple. For people like Simon Oliver from east London, it has changed their lives forever.
Yes, We Plan: How Altruism and Advertising Could Change the World
(Eliot Van Buskirk, Wired) Marketing veteran Cindy Gallop and software developer Wendell Davis are on a quest to make the world a better place, with a crowdsourcing project to motivate people to do big things by taking small bites. Their theory: Small, good intentions can bring about great leaps.
The Zen Millionaire's 14 Secrets To Happiness
(Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch) What's happening? Did we hit a bottom? Time to cut the gloom? I'm halfway into a new column, switching back and forth online, reading breaking news, emails, writing. Suddenly, news turns upbeat, positive, optimistic. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress the recession will end in '09. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner even smiled NBC anchor Brian Williams' listeners: "Stop reporting just the bad news" Newsweek cover: "How Obama Can Talk Us Out of a Depression" Over at ABC, former President Bill Clinton encouraged President Obama to charm us with good news.
Profiting from happiness
(Economist) Are firms with cheery workers more likely to make investors smile? According to Alex Edmans of Wharton, a business school, choosing to invest in a portfolio comprising companies that have happy employees (as measured using Fortune's “100 best companies to work for”, most recently published in January this year) is likely to bring rewards.
Miami banker gives $60 million of his own to employees
(Martha Brannigan, Miami Herald) Lots of bosses say they value their employees. Some even mean it. And then there's Leonard Abess Jr. After selling a majority stake in Miami-based City National Bancshares last November, all he did was take $60 million of the proceeds - $60 million out of his own pocket - and hand it to his tellers, bookkeepers, clerks, everyone on the payroll. All 399 workers on the staff received bonuses, and he even tracked down 72 former employees so they could share in the windfall.
GlaxoSmithKline Pledges Cheap Medicine for World's Poor
(Sarah Boseley, Guardian) The world's second biggest pharmaceutical company is to radically shift its attitude to providing cheap drugs to millions of people in the developing world. In a major change of strategy, the new head of GlaxoSmithKline, Andrew Witty, has told the Guardian he will slash prices on all medicines in the poorest countries, give back profits to be spent on hospitals and clinics and – most ground-breaking of all – share knowledge about potential drugs that are currently protected by patents.
Happy Employees Could be Key to Success
(Molly Sutter, KSAL) A researcher from Kansas State University says employers should be concerned with the well-being of their employees because it could be the underlying factor to success.