Overwork
What Our Culture of Overwork Is Doing to Mothers | TIME – One reason for the stall in gender equity during the 1990s was a change in typical work weeks and remuneration patterns,” wrote Youngjoo Cha, assistant professor of Sociology at IUB in a companion presented at the CCF symposium. “This period saw a significant rise in ‘overwork,’ the practice of consistently working 50 hours or more a week, along with a dramatic increase in the financial incentives for working long hours. – In Asian markets such as Korea, China and Japan employees are known to die of overwork. The Japanese even have a word for occupation sudden death (what death by overwork is called) Karoshi.
Business
Samsung Earnings: What to Watch | WSJ – unsold stock in China and Europe?
China’s rich are less likely to keep business in the family – unlike Hong Kong’s wealthy | South China Morning Post – similar approach taken by Mr Ren at Huawei
China’s Hony ready to make more overseas deals after Pizza Express buy | SCMP – huge gulf in casual dining, China tends to have fast food or high-end dining
CHART OF THE DAY: Most Of Amazon’s Income Goes Back Into The Company (AMZN) – the financial results almost reminded me of Intel’s ‘tick-tock’ planning and process change
Chinese Search Giant Baidu Buys Pre-fab Modular Data Center from Schneider – interesting that they went to a western supplier
Consumer behaviour
Smells Like Millennial Spirit: The three key cultural factors molding Millennial consumers – the more I read this stuff the more they sound like gen-x. Turmoil, smurmoil – try living through the cold war with Reagan’s hand on the nuclear trigger, rampant inflation and globalisation burning your job prospects into the ground
OkCupid experimented on users and proved everyone just looks at the pictures | Quartz – people trust machine advice and buy with their eyes, what are the implications in this research for e-railers and advertisers?
Culture
How Ravers Became the New Flower Children | New Republic – how reimported house and techno brought about a rave like culture in the US
FMCG
Tea-flavored toothpaste is helping Chinese brands edge out the competition : Shanghaiist – interesting given the 70% lock Colgate had on the market
Legal
There’s no longer any doubt that Microsoft is in China’s crosshairs | Quartz – no real surprise here, there have been warning moves for a few years. They didn’t listen, they get the slap. It will be interesting to see if Frank X. Shaw tries to spin this (I suspect he’ll keep very very quiet indeed)
Stream that bootlegged movie, go to jail | Silicon Beat – US government thinks that the new war on drugs is piracy basically
Luxury
Jing Daily: Yves Saint Laurent invitation to kiss campaign – interesting make-up marketing campaign. More related content here.
Marketing
Content personalization roundup | eMarketer – white paper from eMarketer with handy slideware charts on loyalty, data analytics, retail, real-time marketing and email
Online
Tencent reportedly downsizing microblogging platform | WantChinaTimes – interesting if Tencent Weibo is put in maintenance mode
Online payments and prostitution: How the internet is transforming the oldest profession – crypto-currency does away with the creepiness of cash, the big problem with credit cards and PayPal in the US is the payment providers closing accounts and traceability
Retailing
The traditional shopping experience can no longer survive in China | WantChinaTimes – department stores taking a kicking from e-tailing
Amazon rewards Prime Members who choose slower shipping | Marketing Pilgrim – I wonder what Amazon will do with the data beyond using differentiated delivery, would this be baked in for future offerings?
Security
Surveillance Costs: The NSA’s impact on the economy, internet freedom and cybersecurity | New America’s Open Technology Institute – US think tank’s analysis on the NSA revelations (PDF)
Taiwan
Taiwan eager to tap into industrial robots market | WantChinaTimes – it would be interesting to see what Taiwan could do in industrial robotics
Technology
Qualcomm top exec Peggy Johnson said to be on her way to Microsoft | GigaOM – potential loss for Qualcomm on top of the current China problems
North American Robotics Market Posts its Best Quarter Ever | PR Newswire – This performance shattered the previous record for a single quarter, exceeding the fourth quarter of 2012 by 31% in units and 17% in revenue – so margins on robots are declining?
PC sales estimates: How the sausage gets made | Fortune – why don’t they have a look at slaughtered goats intestines whilst they are at it?
Wireless
Meet Intel’s SoFIA, the super-cheap smartphone chip created in Singapore – CNET – will Intel be able to do it though?
A reminder of how ultra-cheap Androids are taking over in emerging markets — fast | GigaOM – it will be interesting to see if Microsoft can hit the price points needed
HTC’s brand awareness in China drops: report – HTC is an uncomfortable sandwich, it has Apple in the luxury brand position above it and Samsung et al as peers. The most danger comes from below with Lenovo, Oppo and Xiaomi turning out products that look increasingly impressive