Categories: Culture

Fashion Flip Flop: Why Crocs are failing amid the recession

Posted by: Diane Brady on July 20

I realized this weekend that my 8-year-old son and my 6-year-old daughter have lost interest in their Crocs. Last year's purchases are still around, ready to wear thanks to fact...

Wal-Mart's New Doyenne of Diversity

Posted by: Matthew Boyle on June 23

Wal-Mart’s new CEO Mike Duke took another step towards delivering on his promise to promote diversity at the Bentonville-based retail giant on June 22 by naming L. Mecole "Cole" Brown...

Readers: What Makes You Optimistic?

Posted by: Michelle Conlin on June 05

For our summer double issue here at BusinessWeek, we are putting together a special report on the Case for Optimism. We want to hear what is making our readers...

Why are Women Getting Sicker and Sadder?

Posted by: Michelle Conlin on May 26

Recently I wrote a story about how all the happiness and life satisfaction research is showing that as women age, they become sicker and sadder. I noted this after writing...

Intern Abuse?

Posted by: Michelle Conlin on May 05

Meet the newest class of labor-market slogger: the perma intern. The perma interns are those scarily young types moving into those cubicles vacated by layoff victims. They may even be...

The Virtues of Near Death: IBM versus GM

Posted by: Michelle Conlin on January 07

For more than a decade now, my boys over at Future of Work, those uber-youthful sages Jim Ware and Charlie Grantham, have been preaching the virtues of geographic agnosticism:...

The Upside of the Downside

Posted by: Michelle Conlin on January 06

Waiting for the elevator today at the BusinessWeek mothership, I bumped into a certain managing editor. He of the frayed Brooks Brothers, the dependable cardigan. He was sporting a...

Managing Your Wardrobe: The Working Mom-cum-Recessionista Clothing Swap

Posted by: Michelle Conlin on December 17

I recently found myself on the Lower East Side, arms loaded with the has-beens and cast-offs of my corporate wardrobe. It was a drizzly Sunday evening and I had...

Why are more middle-aged white women committing suicide?

Posted by: Michelle Conlin on October 21

I woke early Monday morning for a 7:30 a.m. breakfast at one of my all-time favorites: the St. Regis Hotel. My guest was management rock star Marcus Buckinham, the...

Sexism Pays: The Mad Men Premium

Posted by: Michelle Conlin on September 22

Comes now a new study that finds that men who hold traditional views of women earn more than men who don't. The study also finds that women with egalitarian...

Are You Taking a Vacation? Or a Fauxcation?

Posted by: Michelle Conlin on June 24

Taking a long weekend is not a vacation. It is a fauxcation. Wheeler-dealering above on his cell phone--in medias massage--is a lawyer I wrote about last fall on a...

Is the 4-Day Workweek The Answer to $4-Gas?

Posted by: Michelle Conlin on June 11

Recently I wrote a story about how $4 gas was finally breaking workers' petroleum addiction. That, and our upcoming summer double issue on balancing work and life, got me...

Consumers may suffer but their dogs do fine

Posted by: Diane Brady on June 03

Consumer spending may be on the decline but a new survey finds that there's one place many of them refuse to cut back: pet pampering. An online poll by Petfinder.com...

The Power Business Ballad

Posted by: Jena McGregor on May 06

We've all been there. That moment at a colleague's retirement shindig, acompany holiday party, or a corporate retreat, when the nightmare hits: What if this song or skit ends up...

Starbucks: It's the cups, stupid...

Posted by: Michelle Conlin on April 09

The recent Bryant Park and Pike Place appearances of Starbucks ceo Howard Schultz remind me of Proust trying to reconjure his madeleine. So many of Schlutz's actions are all...

Why Business Shouldn't Boycott the Olympics

Posted by: Diane Brady on March 20

As the turmoil in Tibet rages on, calls to boycott the Beijing Olympics have mounted. Beijing, of course, says it's business as usual. The question is what other governments will...

Working Remotely...or Remotely Working? Part Two

Posted by: Michelle Conlin on January 31

It was the kind of spring day that golfers fantasize about--balmy, crisp, no wind. But there would be no links for Ken Wisneski. The president of business services firm Vendorseek...

Richard Florida Does It Again

Posted by: Michelle Conlin on January 02

One of my all-time favorite working life books is Richard Florida's 2002 bestseller The Rise of the Creative Class. Florida--he of the no collar workforce and Bohemian-Gay housing index...

Advice from a CE-Yo

Posted by: Diane Brady on December 17

I have long admired Gary Hirshberg's business philosophy. The co-founder and chief of Stonyfield Farm combines his drive for profits with a deeply held desire to improve the environment. He...

Facebook Fatigue, Mon Dieu

Posted by: Michelle Conlin on November 07

Ah the fear and loathing. Of the Facebook. The ishiness, the horror. The can't-get-with-it-ness. The I-don't-get-it creep. The escalating social-media status anxiety. The info bankruptcy. Ah, Facebook. You are...

"Marketing" 101

Posted by: Diane Brady on October 10

I love to get comments on our blog items, especially when they prompt reader debate like our posts on Chinese recalls or Whole Foods' John Mackey. But about a dozen...

The Problem with Pricetags: Classmates.com & NY Times

Posted by: Diane Brady on September 18

The New York Times has finally scrapped Times Select -- the service that charges online users a fee to read certain columns, archives and blogs. It turns out advertisers didn't...

Arnold & Porter's (Green) Google Juice

Posted by: Michelle Conlin on August 16

There is a reason Google, so much the world's top talent magnet that it turns down Ivy League Phi Beta Kappas, offers perks such as cash for hybrid cars,...

More on The Bully Broad Syndrome

Posted by: Michelle Conlin on July 30

Comes now yet another study on professional women and the fiery demon. I've taken an interest in the subject ever since my exploration of the "bully broad" phenom in...

The Wild Oats View

Posted by: Jena McGregor on July 17

In all the discussion of Whole Foods CEO John Mackey's “rahodeb” postings, one thing I haven’t seen discussed is the impact on the Wild Oats employees and culture. Can you...

A New Corporate Dress Code for Global Warming?

Posted by: Michelle Conlin on July 11

New York City is a steamy, drippy disaster. I wake up sopping in my Huis Clos of a bedroom with no air conditioning. I stare at the closet. Suits....

Secrets of Super Bowl winner!

Posted by: Diane Brady on June 27

How many business books can keep tapping the sports world for pithy truths about how to succeed? Now comes "Hiring Secrets of the NFL". I'm sure there's something to this, as long as we don't have to pay NFL-style salaries, but it made me laugh. Is professional football really such a rich resource for management expertise?

Cult of the Amateur

Posted by: Diane Brady on June 24

Andrew Keen thinks the days of Web 2.0 are numbered. And he's no fan of Google. "The problem with Google is they want to be too intimate with us. Google is not our friend. It’s the next generation advertising superpower."

Spam calls from John Demartini

Posted by: Diane Brady on June 14

John Demartini claims to have sold out shows everywhere from South Africa to the U.S. He was featured in The Secret. So why does he have to employ spam-like techniques to get media coverage?

Do You Give Good Google?

Posted by: Michelle Conlin on June 13

More than a year ago, BusinessWeek wrote a story about the ever-important art of giving good Google. The search engine has become the new Q ratings of the creative...

Googlers Have Tastier Food, Fatter Portfolios....and Better Toilets?

Posted by: Jena McGregor on May 18

For anyone who finds the perks offered to Googlers both incredible (great food!) and a little bizarre (onsite laundry means washing your underwear with co-workers) will find this pretty funny.