Are You Ready for A Future of Crises? NYU Report Says No

A provocative new report from NYU argues that the vast bulk of US government agencies, non-governmental organizations and businesses are not ready to respond to a growing array and frequency of crises. The study, titled Predicting Organizational Response to Crisis: Perspectives and Practices toward a Pathway to Preparedness (holy alliteration Batman!), reports on a telephone survey of 468 organizational leaders conducted for NYU by Princeton Survey Research Associates International.

Corporate Incubation: Big Pharma's Bold Move

I've been meaning to write about this for a few months now, but the news this week about GlaxoSmithKline's cutbacks in internal R&D (I'll post something about this later in the week) brought me back to a March 2008 piece in Nature Biotechnology about the establishment of corporate biotech incubators at Biogen and Pfizer. (Nature Biotechnology, "Start-ups weigh benefits of corporate incubators", March 2008)

Running on Copyright Infringement

Jackson Browne filed suit against John McCain, the RNC, and the Ohio National Republican Committee for using "Running on Empty" in an Obama attack ad without the artist's permission. Browne, a liberal, objected to the ad and the Ohio Republicans say they pulled it right away so they don't understand what all the fuss is about. Duh, guys, it's called politics. Oh right, and copyright law, something which McCain explicitly promises to protect from nasty pirates in his Technology Policy statement.

Re-engineering the Internet

During a workshop at IFTF this week,  I offered a forecast  that there is at least a 50% probability of a fundamental re-engineering of the internet. Here's a bit of detail on this forecast and why I think this last week has been a critical turning point.

Playlist my way? Not quite.

At first glance, Universal Music's new "Playlist Your Way" program may look like the company is finally catching on to one of the things that fans and digital music mavens have wanted for a long time: options.

"'Virtual' self can help dieting, exercise"

Bye bye, bad-for-you foods (at least in California)

I've been meaning to post something about California becoming the first state to ban the use of trans fats--which are known to increase the risk of heart disease--by restaurants and other food facilities, but haven't gotten around to it yet. My aplogies doe the delay.  (By the way, New York City has already done adopted a similar ban, as have Philadelphia, Stamford, Conn., and Montgomery County, Md.)