Richard Rosenbloom passed away on October 26th. He was a gentle soul, a wonderful person, and a insightful scholar. He will be missed. I will miss him. I had the great fortune to meet him several times. The first of these meetings occurred when I was a student. Those first meetings were informal because his …
Steve Jobs Tells Three Stories about his Life
Thanks, Steve, for all you've done for the world. You lived a life true to your ideals.
Lunchtime videos: anticipating the future
A common theme in innovation is how much uncertainty there is about innovations that will be achieved in the future and, in particular, about their value. The classic reference is this piece by Nathan Rosenberg that documents many cases where people got it wrong. The flip-side are situations where the future was well anticipated. For …
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Lunch Break: Robot ball controlled from your iPhone
Here's an interesting way for the digital and physical worlds to interact: Sphero is a robot ball controlled from your smart phone. I could make a connection to the unexpected power of combinatorial innovation in the digital economy, but the truth is, it's just kind of fun to watch on my lunch break. Enjoy!
The Dismal Economics of Moneyball
Moneyball is a huge hit, which doesn't happen too often to movies featuring an economics major who's good at statistics. It tells the true story of how the Oakland A's became a competitive team despite having a payroll less than 1/3 of the Yankees. They did it by using statistical techniques pioneered by sabermetrician Bill …
What CAN'T computers do?
Not too long ago, there was a relatively long list of things machines couldn't do by themselves: play chess, read legal briefs, translate poetry, vacuum floors, drive cars, etc. But that list is getting shorter and shorter every year. The latest casualty may be writing newspaper articles. Kris Hammond and Larry Birnbaum at Northwestern's Intelligent Information …
The Lexicon of Networking Economics
Economics rarely improves with reference to etymology, but an exception should be made for the economics of networks. Many valid but distinct definitions of “network economics” compete for attention. That causes confusion in academic writing and in public discourse. There are many symptoms of this confusion. Consider this one. When the late Senator Ted Stevens …
Google+ comes up short
What problem does Google+ solve for consumers? The answer appears to be: nothing. And, therefore, it solves nothing for Google either. As with many of these social launches — an exception being the ill-fated Google Buzz — the launch of Google+ was limited. Like Gmail and Google Wave, Google relied on invites to scale initial users and …
Can Digital Technologies Replace Superstars?
Japan's newest pop star, Aimi Eguchi, is a digital creation. For the past couple of decades, digital technologies have been responsible for skill biased technical change, automating and replacing routine, low-skill work while augmenting the demand for more skilled workers. Bank tellers, clerks and assembly line workers were early targets of automation, while rock stars and CEOs benefited from being …
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Stagnation or Mismeasurement?
A long, long time ago, in an office not far away, I did some work on the "Productivity Paradox". Recently, the issue has resurfaced in a new way, especially via a new e-book by Tyler Cowen called "The Great Stagnation". Annie Lowrey in Slate discusses Tyler's thesis and quotes me on one counter argument: But revenue is not …
