http://www.project-syndicate.org/about_us/rss en 10:01:33 22-Mar-2010 webmaster@project-syndicate.org http://www.interglacial.com/rss/about.html http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/dyson18/1 How can Russia - or any country - create its own Silicon Valley? The answer is not lots of money in proximity to a great university or two, but rather a culture that rewards thoughtful innovation and considers mistakes the price of learning. http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/dyson16/1 Perhaps our most meaningful creations are the thoughts and changes that we leave in other people – traces that used to disperse and disappear over time after someone’s death. But now Facebook and other such tools, provide a place for those memories to gather. http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/dyson17/1 Google's threat to leave China probably stems from a combination of – or rather, a changing calculus around – its business interests and its values. The censorship issue has long grated at the company, but so have the constraints on any foreign company's ability to make serious long-term profits. http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/dyson15/1 Companies spend a lot of time and money watching customers, trying to figure them out, but so little time listening to them. They can use a wealth of new technologies to learn what their customers want, but, just as important, they need to listen in order to make customers feel listened to. http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/dyson14/1 More and more markets picked up two related concepts: time-based pricing and more efficient use of so-called “vanishing assets” – or capital goods that generate revenue only as they are used. Airlines and hotels were among the first to use time-based pricing, but now consumers can be targeted by anyone from a manicurist to an airport massage booth. http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/dyson13/1 As the journalistic priesthood erodes and everyone can become a citizen reporter or commentator, training or regulating all would-be journalists is not the answer. In the end, everyone has to become a better reader – more skeptical and more curious. http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/dyson12/1 Right now, a genome is akin to a novel written in an unknown language: a huge amount of information that we can’t understand. On the other hand, we have started recognizing some words – specific genes – that seem to correspond to certain incidents in history, which, in the case of genetics, are diseases and conditions. http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/dyson11/1 Many people think that Yahoo! is as good as dead: investors have pummeled the stock, driving it down 20% since its recent deal with Microsoft was announced. But the company is now in a stronger position to stake out new ground, rather than fight with Google over stale turf. http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/dyson10/1 The challenges facing civil-society organizations may be tougher in some parts of the world than in others, but the challenges facing civil society itself are are similar everywhere. Indeed, around the world there is a gap between civil-society organizations and the societies they profess to serve. http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/dyson9/1 Forget about innovation and exotic new technology. People still haven’t learned to use the technology we already have, and nowhere is this more evident than in the use - and misuse - of e-mail. http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/dyson8/1 Excitement about electric cars abounds nowadays, but it wouldl take years of new-car sales to make a dent in the number of existing gasoline-powered cars, which is about 850 million. That fact at first depressed Jiri Räsänen, a civil servant in Helsinki, but then it gave him and his friends a good idea: Why not keep the cars but replace their engines? http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/dyson7/1 Advertising must change from sending “messages” to passive consumers to sponsorship, product placement and, conversations with active consumers. As it does, the traditional skills of advertising will give way to those of public relations.