Jimmy Guterman
Jimmy Guterman is the senior editor of Harvard Business Review. Before that he was executive editor of MIT Sloan Management Review. Before that, he was editorial director of the Radar Group at O'Reilly Media, where he edited Release 2.0, among other things. And before that he was an editor at large for a team at Harvard Business School Publishing that publishes the online and print publications he works for now, thus closing the circle.
The Dangers of Predicting the Future
The instant-analysis business is a tricky one. None of us have working crystal balls; any attempt to predict the future, even the five-minutes-from-now future, is risky. For example, on January 31, mere hours before Microsoft made its unsolicted $44 billion-plus offer for Yahoo, Forrester Research, my alma matter, posted a research note with the following headline and deck: Microsoft Will…
R.E.M., Open Source, and Staying Alive When an Industry Shifts
Over the weekend, Nat posted "Artistic License 2.0 and … REM?!" which noted that the veteran rock'n'roll band was releasing its new video under an open license (if not in an open format). It's good to see an old band learn a new trick, and it suggests what those in the music industry might do if they want to have…
Steve Jobs rules the recording industry. Now what?
Last night's Grammy Awards ceremonies were even less relevant than usual, no small achievement. The TV broadcast began with a "performance" by that cutting-edge new artist Frank Sinatra and fell down from there. The only real emotional charge of an evening celebrating the most emotional of media came when we viewers were confronted with the disparity between the preternatural confidence…
Money:Tech Day 2: Best Lines of the Day [MoneyTech]
Like yesterday, the second day of Money:Tech was stuffed with early signals on everything from using website visits to predict the unemployment rate to the emerging market for catastrophe bonds. Here are just a few of the choice lines today: Michael Stonebraker, Streambase, on why fast-moving financial firms must keep their data in memory, not on a hard disc: "The…
Money:Tech Day 1: Best Lines [MoneyTech]
There's so much going on at Money:Tech today that I won't try to cheapen it my squeezing it all into a blog post. Indeed, we're planning a full issue of Release 2.0 in April to capture how much has happened in the collision of Wall Street and Web 2.0 since we first identified it last year (PDF link to issue,…
The Industry Standard is back. Why?
The Industry Standard ably chronicled — and, eventually, mirrored — the Internet boom that began a decade ago and died a few years later. (Disclosure: Despite its occasional excesses, I am honored to have been associated with the magazine.) After years of noticing that thestandard.com was still receiving ample traffic and — with one brief exception a few years back…
Jim Cramer, unplugged [MoneyTech]
Those who know Jim Cramer only from the final segment on his nightly CNBC screamfest are missing someone as reasonable as he is entertaining. That more balanced Cramer spoke with Money:Tech conference chair Paul Kedrosky this morning about how technology has changed investing. Kedrosky noted that, compared to 20 years ago, "we're all quants today" because we have so much…
If you can't be at the conference, at least join the prediction markets [MoneyTech]
Money:Tech is about to begin and we'll be reporting from the conference. For those not here who'd like to play along with our conference prediction markets, join in….
CNN Goes Multitouch
We've been noting more and more signals that multitouch screens are catching on beyond the iPhone and iPod Touch. We've recently seen a hint from Microsoft and a Walt Mossberg overview in the Wall Street Journal. And there's a high-profile one going on right now. CNN is reporting on the unfolding Super Tuesday presidential primary results and on-air personalities are…
A rare post about the music industry that isn't completely depressing
The Qtrax debacle is getting most of the attention this week, with Warner Music's ridiculous CEO compensation close behind, but there is promising news in the music industry worth noting. Late last year, there was much fuss around Radiohead's decision to eschew usual distribution schemes and release In Rainbows in a variety of formats, among them free downloads. It was…