Article provides a plain-english look at a new wireless technology that has the potential to shake up several markets.

You can customize your job hunt on small sites.

Although digital cash was a compelling concept, companies went out of business left and right trying to make it work -- until PayPal came along. PayPal's simplified idea of e-cash didn't create a separate currency (instead sticking with the good old dollar), and signing up didn't require any paperwork or credit checks. The service expanded exponentially when eBay users began to adopt it as a payment method of choice. However, the same facts that make PayPal easy to use and sign up for have a flip side.

"Unsatisfactory" is the word that best describes the contemporary debate over globalization. There seems to be a consensus that globalization - whether economic, political, cultural, or environmental - is defined by increasing levels of interdependence over vast distances. But few people have undertaken the task of actually trying to measure those levels of interdependence. For instance, how do we determine the extent to which a country has become embedded within the global economy? How do we demonstrate that globalization is racing ahead, rather than just limping along? And how do we know just how worldwide the World Wide Web has become?

With this challenge in mind, we present the A.T. Kearney/FOREIGN POLICY Magazine Globalization Index TM, which offers a comprehensive guide to globalization in 50 developed countries and key emerging markets worldwide. The Globalization Index "reverse-engineers" globalization and breaks it down into its most important component parts. On a country-by-country basis, it quantifies the level of personal contact across national borders by combining data on international travel, international phone calls, and cross-border remittances and other transfers. It charts the World Wide Web by assessing not only its growing number of users, but also the number of Internet hosts and secure servers through which they communicate, find information, and conduct business transactions.

The Globalization Index also measures economic integration. It tracks the movements of goods and services by examining the changing share of international trade in each country's economy, and it measures the permeability of national borders through the convergence of domestic and international prices. The index also tracks the movements of money by tabulating inward- and outward-directed foreign investment and portfolio capital flows, as well as income payments and receipts.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board is proposing to change the way a company accounts for the premium - or payment in excess of fair market value - that it pays to acquire another company. The idea is to give analysts and others more information about merger activity, thereby allowing them to make better investment decisions. But as usual, there is more going on than meets the eye, and it may have as much to do with FASB sensitivities as it does with accounting practice.

Although focused on a time-sensitive issue, this article offers some insight into some serious and important issues regarding the role of a central bank in peculiar economic circumstances. Some of the proposed solutions are very thought-provoking. Also an interesting profile of Masaru Hayami, governor of the Bank of Japan and some of the history of the current troubles with Japan's economy.

Studies by groups ranging from the Council of Better Business Bureaus Inc. to the University of Michigan vividly detail what consumers already know: Good service is increasingly rare (charts). From passengers languishing in airport queues to bank clients caught in voice-mail hell, most consumers feel they're getting squeezed by Corporate America's push for profits and productivity. The result is more efficiencies for companies - and more frustration for their less valuable customers.

Welcome to the new consumer apartheid. Those long lines and frustrating telephone trees aren't always the result of companies simply not caring about pleasing the customer anymore. Increasingly, companies have made a deliberate decision to give some people skimpy service because that's all their business is worth.

David Komansky, chairman and CEO of Merrill Lynch & Co., finds it ironic that the head of a financial services firm gets asked to lecture on the new economy these days. "Our company has been called 'a relic from the Cro-Magnon era'," he said during a visit to Wharton. "But because of the patterns that started in the last year, some of the virtues of the old economy companies have now become more accepted." Komansky offers in this article five paradoxes of the new economy:
1. scale is just as important as innovation
2. in a world of endless choices, brand matters
3. in a world filled with information, relationships are critical
4. age doesn't matter, but seizing opportunity does
5. in the new economy, the most satisfying job experiences can be found in traditional workplaces

With the click of a mouse, the ability of consumers to compare prices for everything from a new car to a new condo to a new coat has been dramatically transformed. Businesses in turn have had to throw out old, static pricing models and find new ways to respond to customers' digital dexterity. Results have been mixed.

Inspiring article about Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy, who runs several eye hospitals that restore eyesite to about 180,000 Indians each year, 70% of whome receive the service for free.

The world's most famous business-school professor is fed up with CEOs who claim that the world changes too fast for their companies to have a long-term strategy. If you want to make a difference as a leader, you've got to make time for strategy.

Gartner Group article compares DSL and cable modem based services, specifically with an eye to quality of service (QoS).

Article looks at how poor utilization of credit cards and the arcane infrastructure in place to support them are hurting online sales in Japan.

A look at the concept of activity-based costing, or ABC and its growing popularity in the manufacturing world.

Article discusses the concept of business development corporations (BDCs) and highlights some of the players.

CommerceNet, a nonprofit booster of e-business, won respect throughout Silicon Valley because it was an honest broker. So how did a few of the group's executives make millions for themselves? This article explains how and also provides an interesting look at an important historical presence in the development of e-commerce.

Online recruiting is changing the way employers think about finding good employees and the way employees think about their jobs and their employers. Indeed, the Internet may completely change the way companies manage human resources, says Peter Cappelli, a professor of management at Wharton. But while the Internet makes it easy to find resumes of passive applicants - people who are happy with their current jobs but who might be induced to move to a better one - it also raises serious ethical questions about privacy.

Help desks deal with all types of users, and one tech has finally created a classification system that Darwin himself would be proud of. Here's a lighthearted look at the users you love to serve but who often drive you mad.

For a glimpse inside the world of venture capital, BusinessWeek spent several days following Robert E. Davoli, a partner at Sigma Partners, to board meetings and partner sessions on both coasts.

Can Crown Prince Abdullah lead his desert kingdom into the 21st century? An interesting look at the reform efforts and some general background of Saudi Arabia.

In the world of high performance computing, everyone wants to know how well a system performs before deciding to buy it. Benchmarks provide a relatively objective way of determining how well a system will perform under given conditions. What customers need to know is: which benchmarks are relevant to their particular needs, and which ones don't matter? This article answers those questions and offers two useful tables - one listing the most common benchmark tests and another showing the correlation between those tests and various tasks/applications. Also discussed is the misapplication of benchmarks.

Interesting article discusses the challenges facing Syria in changing its economy. Offers some useful background for those not knowledgeable about this country.

If you're looking for companies with the greatest global market share, throw away the usual top ten lists. The real superperformers are what Hermann Simon calls "Hidden Champions", firms that relish their anonymity and approach success in unconventional ways. In this article, he summarizes highly contrarian findings in nine points: 1. Authoritarian-Participative Leadership 2. Overambitious Goals 3. Reliance on Own Strength 4. More Work Than Heads 5. Extreme Innovation 6. Narrow Market Focus 7. Rigorous Globalization 8. Little Marketing Professionalism 9. Closeness to Competitors

Leaders are not always benevolent; their intents not always benign. Followers are not necessarily passive and devoid of responsibility. History has taught us these lessons enough times - why then is popular management literature so full of inspirational transformational models of leadership?

"The New Economy is based on the production of knowledge. The Old Economy is based on natural resources and the production of physical goods. Now the line between them is beginning to blur. A New Old Economy is making productivity surge and ushering in an Age of Plenty."

Excellent article looks specifically at the Oil industry and how it has moved into the modern technology era. If you're like me and didn't know much about this industry it's a good peak inside. Also see the industry stats culled from the article at: http://www.mbadepot.com/market/mktdata.php?ID=349