Ged Carroll

Category: business | 商業 | 상업 | ビジネス

My interest in business or commercial activity first started when a work friend of my Mum visited our family. She brought a book on commerce which is what business studies would have been called decades earlier. I read the book and that piqued my interest.

At the end of your third year in secondary school you are allowed to pick optional classes that you will take exams in. this is supposed to be something that you’re free to chose.

I was interested in business studies (partly because my friend Joe was doing it). But the school decided that they wanted me to do physics and chemistry instead and they did the same for my advanced level exams because I had done well in the normal level ones. School had a lot to answer for, but fortunately I managed to get back on track with college.

Eventually I finally managed to do pass a foundational course at night school whilst working in industry. I used that to then help me go and study for a degree in marketing.

I work in advertising now. And had previously worked in petrochemicals, plastics and optical fibre manfacture. All of which revolve around business. That’s why you find a business section here on my blog.

Business tends to cover a wide range of sectors that catch my eye over time. Business usually covers sectors that I don’t write about that much, but that have an outside impact on wider economics. So real estate would have been on my radar during the 2008 recession.

  • Photo hashing & other news

    Apple photo hashing

    Report: Apple to announce client-side photo hashing system to detect child abuse images in user’s photos libraries – 9to5Mac – photo hashing its not foolproof. Once the proof of concept exists, Apple won’t be able to withstand the pressure authoritarian government could use it to track other materials. Tencent’s WeChat is already collecting memes that the Chinese government wouldn’t like from foreign WeChat accounts so that it can train its algorithms to locate similar content with domestic users. The risk for Apple’s customers in other markets like Russia, China and the middle east is real. Apple’s development of photo hashing has garnered a lot of coverage

    Apple plans to scan US iPhones for child abuse imagery | Financial Times 

    Apple led the market on encryption, but other players like WhatsApp have made it clear that they won’t follow Apple on photo hashing.

    Apple has been trying to ignore the voices complaining against its photo hashing initiative. The problem is that those voices are the early adopters and developers who have made Apple what it is today. I think that this could end very badly for Apple in the long term. Particularly when viewed in context of questionable ethical choices despite its progressive positioning on issues in western markets

    Apple Discusses “Screeching Voices of the Minority” in Internal Memos – It’s difficult to even write a piece like this, pointing out that a feature ostensibly created for good could have bad implications. Again: What happens when a country like China uses this feature to find people with images critical of the government? Why wouldn’t the industry want to start searching for pirated content on iPhones in a few years?

    Apple Privacy Letter: An Open Letter Against Apple’s Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology – a legion of the great and the good of the technorati from around the world on the photo hashing

    One Bad Apple – The Hacker Factor Blog 

    Even the FT weighed in.

    Business

    The China risk factor continues to reverberate: China’s Corporate Crackdown Is Just Getting Started. Signs Point to More Tumult Ahead. – WSJ

    Chinese music group pulls $1bn Hong Kong IPO after tech crackdown | Financial Times – interesting move, especially given Netease’s exposure to the edutech sector

    ‘If Masa said yes, who am I to object?’: SoftBank deals unleash internal compliance tensions | Financial Times – sounds like desperate measures

    China

    Is Pax Sinica possible? – China will need to start upholding democratic values and norms, and cultivating peaceful relationships with other countries. Pax Americana has survived for so long, because many countries, including China’s neighbours, rely heavily on the US for trade, finance, technology, and security. They will be reluctant to accept Pax Sinica, unless China offers them something better. And that must begin with pax – I suspect that Premier Xi would be thinking more along the lines of mercantilistic trade relationships and vassal statehood, which would be more in keeping with pre-revolutionary China

    Consumer behaviour

    Everybody needs to get vaccinated, says Tilman Fertitta – Fertitta’s comments about employees admitting that they had fake vaccines cards is pretty disturbing. It isn’t like vaccines are in short supply in the markets that has restaurants in like New York. The counterfeit vaccine cards must be more about avoiding vaccines all together

    Historical language records reveal a surge of cognitive distortions in recent decades | PNAS – Individuals with depression are prone to maladaptive patterns of thinking, known as cognitive distortions, whereby they think about themselves, the world, and the future in overly negative and inaccurate ways. These distortions are associated with marked changes in an individual’s mood, behavior, and language. We hypothesize that societies can undergo similar changes in their collective psychology that are reflected in historical records of language use. Here, we investigate the prevalence of textual markers of cognitive distortions in over 14 million books for the past 125 y and observe a surge of their prevalence since the 1980s, to levels exceeding those of the Great Depression and both World Wars. This pattern does not seem to be driven by changes in word meaning, publishing and writing standards, or the Google Books sample. Our results suggest a recent societal shift toward language associated with cognitive distortions and internalizing disorders. – literally society is sick

    The xenophobic chicken and the propaganda egg: disentangling official and popular nationalism in China – by Kevin Carrico – NSL can’t cancel me – you could not make some of this up. But then, you also couldn’t make up the QAnon community if you tried either.

    ‘Sales funnels’ and high-value men: the rise of strategic dating | Dating | The Guardian – I suspect this is an edge case but its interesting

    Where have all the pre-teens gone? – The Face 

    Design

    ongoing by Tim Bray · Apps Getting Worse – Every high-tech company has people called “Product Managers” (PMs) whose job it is to work with customers and management and engineers to define what products should do. No PM in history has ever said “This seems to be working pretty well, let’s leave it the way it is.” Because that’s not bold. That’s not visionary. That doesn’t get you promoted. – This also explains why Skype got designed into irrelevancy

    FMCG

    Unilever installs a detergent refill machine in Mumbai | Trendwatching – this all feels like things have gone full circle. My Mum and Dad growing up as children in rural Ireland talked about how many dry goods products were sold by weight in the village store. My Granny used to keep spices and flavourings for baking in a bucket sized tin that she’d been gifted decades before by the village store owner. Used packaging was a community asset rather than a liability. The biscuits were sold by the dozen in a paper bag by the shopkeeper. I can just about remember the village store and its long time owner Mrs Paddy Kelly, (Mr Kelly had died decades ago but I have no idea what Mrs Kelly’s name was). By the time I was born, it was more like a modern convenience store, with a farm supplies store attached. Electricity had come to the farm when I was three or four, so we had a fridge and an icebox – ideal for a block of HB vanilla ice cream that came back from the shop wrapped in newsprint to try and keep it cold.

    Secondly, by having a vending machine in store; Unilever are still managing to keep control of their brand.

    Japan

    Japan’s fractured polity exposed by COVID-19 crisis – Nikkei Asia – Whatever the intention, the public sees hypocrisy, inconsistency and incompetence. The vaccination rollout has been a mess. The public was asked to practice “self-restraint” and stay at home for the fourth state of emergency as the country opened its doors to tens of thousands of athletes and officials for the 2020 Olympics. 

    This dismal state of affairs clashes with the image of competence and professionalism that Japan has enjoyed for decades, and for which it is admired around the world. 

    Japan looks good in international COVID comparisons, but by its own standards, the situation is perceived as chaotic and a failure of leadership. The public has lost faith. Cynicism has spread as people blame a sclerotic government that does not seem to understand the many recent transformations of Japanese society

    Legal

    South Africa grants patent to an AI system known as DABUS — Quartz Africa – The patent application listing DABUS as the inventor was filed in patent offices around the world, including the US, Europe, Australia, and South Africa. But only South Africa granted the patent (Australia followed suit a few days later after a court judgment gave the go-ahead). South Africa’s decision has received widespread backlash from intellectual property experts. Some have labelled it a mistake, or an oversight by the patent office. However, as a patent and AI scholar whose PhD aims to address the gaps in patent law created by AI inventorship, I suggest that the decision is supported by the government’s policy environment in recent years. This has aimed to increase innovation, and views technology as a way to achieve this – back when I worked for DSM before I went to college, a lot of of our patented products were developed using software that tested and then gave us optimal formulas – yet the patents went to the doctor who was the nominal head of the lab

    Luxury

    LVMH’s Deal With Google Is Groundbreaking. Here’s Why. – develop business solutions based on artificial intelligence (AI), it raised many questions about how brands are embracing the use of digital technologies to reshape the luxury experience. Google said they would join forces to empower LVMH’s individual luxury brands to create new, personalised customer experiences that fostered long-term growth, through functions like demand forecasting, inventory optimisation, as well as develop new business use cases at scale and explore co-innovation opportunities by launching a data and AI Academy in Paris

    Luxury Daily | Have China’s ‘trafific stars’ become toxic for beauty brands? – Chinese versions of K-pop stars are becoming embroiled in scandals that affect their brand partners

    Retailing

    Crocs, Ralph Lauren, LV All Get More Expensive As Apparel Prices Soar – Apparel prices across US retailers rose nearly 5% in June, the biggest leap in a decade.

    Software

    ongoing by Tim Bray · Apps Getting Worse – Every high-tech company has people called “Product Managers” (PMs) whose job it is to work with customers and management and engineers to define what products should do. No PM in history has ever said “This seems to be working pretty well, let’s leave it the way it is.” Because that’s not bold. That’s not visionary. That doesn’t get you promoted. – this explains why Skype got designed into irrelevancy

    Sports

    Why Puma cancelled a $2.7 million deal with Nigeria — Quartz Africa – Nigeria’s current sports administrators are delighted. The athletics federation said Nigeria’s sports minister had successfully stopped athletes from receiving Puma bags containing about 40 items each in Tokyo through the Nigerian embassy. To this set of administrators, the 2019 deal was not properly agreed between Puma and previous leaders of Nigeria’s athletics body

    Wireless

    General Dynamics Mission Systems Introduces Badger Software-Defined Radio – Soldier Systems Daily – interesting decline in size, but much slower than would be likely to happen in the commercial space

    Samsung flagships can no longer compete with the Chinese smartphones – The current flagship Galaxy S21 series has never managed to win worldwide love. Judging by the information from South Korean publications, the flagships, which were supposed to destroy competitors, failed miserably in sales. Based on the report of Counterpoint analysts, it can be concluded that the Galaxy S21 series has not been able to repeat the success of any of its predecessors, starting with the Galaxy S5 – this looks like PC sales when ‘white box manufacturers’ disrupted Winter brands such as IBM and Compaq

    Research Alliances Grow to Learn How 6G Will Play Out – EE Times Europe

    Thailand

    Jack “dekfarang” Brown is having a tantrum – by Andrew MacGregor Marshall – Secret Siam – foreign influencers enjoyed by Thais were a thing I didn’t even know about

  • Michael Malone & things this week

    Michael Malone

    Michael Malone was famous to me as a writer on the San Jose Mercury News online site. Michael Malone had been a long time writer on the paper and chronicled all the happenings in Silicon Valley. Michael Malone is now the co-host of The Silicon Insider podcast. In the past he has written numerous books covering different parts of the history of Silicon Valley. So he has a unique perspective on the place and the technology sector.

    Michael Malone was interviewed by NBC reporter Scott Budman on behalf of the Computer History Museum based in Silicon Valley.

    Dune trailer

    Denis Villenueve is the director that Hollywood seems to trust with difficult to tell films like the Blade Runner sequel. He is also the director who is likely to get closest Alejandro Jodorowsky’s attempt to film Dune in the mid-1970s. Green screen and digital cinema offer Villenueve tools that Jodorowsky could only have dreamed of four decades earlier.

    Junk sleep

    US speciality retailer Mattress Firm is doing a couple of new things with its adverts featuring Lev Schreiber. First of all was the concept in the creative of ‘junk sleep’ that reminded me of J Walter Thompson’s early work for Odorono, an early anti-perspirant that invented the concept of ‘body odor’ from a marketing perspective. People had always been smelly, but it was JWT that broached the subject in the adverts.

    https://youtu.be/WudcydXGWLI

    Junk sleep feels like a similar type of concept. As a strategist, I like the concept. The second aspect is the trippy nature of the ads which captures the feeling of sleep deprivation really well.

    Apple watch

    Apple put together a fun ad for health tracking on the Apple Watch. It gets over many of the activities that the Apple Watch can track.

    https://youtu.be/RkRQ_aykXw8

    It reminded me (unintentionally) of The Court of King Caractacus, made famous by Australian entertainer Rolf Harris. Harris had a five decade career in show business that ended in ignominy when he was convicted for 12 indecent assaults on against four girls.

    Emirates and Qatar Airways

    COVID-19 disrupted the airline industry since people weren’t flying. The asymmetry of opening up seems to be hammering the Middle East airline ‘super hub’ model according to this video by Sam Chui. Chui posits that super hubs offer the opportunity for a super spreading event and there is likely to be an uptake in customers wanting to fly direct in the immediate aftermath of COVID-19.

    If this is true, then there will be a knock on effect for duty free retailing and luxury sales as well.

  • The rise & fall of American growth

    The rise and fall of American growth

    It has been five years since The rise and fall of American growth was written by Robert J Gordon. When it was first published it was a New York Times bestseller and won awards from the FT and McKinsey. I felt that it was particularly interesting to go back and visit now, given current economic circumstances and the view that its data provides on the techno-optimism versus techno-pessimism that is currently raging on.

    The Rise and Fall of American Growth

    Understanding the author’s perspective

    Robert J Gordon developed his career as an economist in a crucible. He started his career during a time of battle between Keynesian and the monetarist supporting economists. Keynesian ideas had reached their peak in the 1950s. It was challenged by economists such as Milton Friedman and George Stigler. Both of whom were from the Chicago School. The Chicago School was the University of Chicago. It became a centre for economic conservativism. The Chicago School At his time, drew on the likes of Hayek for its ideas.

    Gordon became a ‘New Keynesian’. They assume that there is imperfect competition in price and wage setting to help explain why prices and wages can become “sticky”. They do not adjust instantaneously to changes in economic conditions. Wage and price stickiness, and the other market failures present in their models, imply that the economy may fail to achieve full employment. They argue that macroeconomic stabilisation by the government and the central bank leads to a more efficient macroeconomic outcome than a laissez faire policy would.

    American growth and techno-optimism

    The techno-optimism viewpoint is that continuing technology innovation is going to bring about a new golden age. There are essays trading perspectives on this back-and-forth.

    Gordon’s research suggests that the kind of growth suggested by techno-optimists as an outcome is usually because of very special circumstances.

    When he looked at American growth through the 19th century; growth had occurred in short spurts and much of it wasn’t driven by technology, but was multiple factors coming together. He further posits that those factors that drove American growth are unlikely to be repeated in the future.

    The last spurt of this growth was during the irrational exuberance of the dot com era.

    As you’d expect from an economist, Gordon pulls together to support his ideas very carefully and it is based on empirical analysis. IT has driven little economic growth, which makes one wonder about the benefits of digital transformation as touted by management consultancies.

    Gordon’s work is also an argument against globalisation, at least for the American economy. It brings into question the American dream.

    Finally, with technology unlikely to drive the kind of stellar growth promised, it brings into question the massive premium set on growth stocks over the long term and venture capital investments in the technology sector and the current Silicon Valley model.

    Gordon’s current research is focused on looking at European and American growth so it will be interesting to see commonalities and differences. I expect to see a spurt of growth from second generation mobile devices that freed up small businesses by providing an instantaneous connection with the customer. Rather than relying on an answer machines or a member of their family as receptionist.

    The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War: 70 (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World, 70)

    More book reviews can be found here.

    More information

    Robert Gordon’s academic papers here.

    Answering the Techno-Pessimists (complete) – Noahpinion 

    Interview: Patrick Collison, co-founder and CEO of Stripe – Noahpinion

  • White Motorcycle & other things this week

    White Motorcycle Concepts WMC250EV

    I have watched this video by White Motorcycle Concepts a few times and still don’t quite get it. White Motorcycle have hollowed out the centre of their motorcycle, to allow air flow through the middle of the bike rather than cutting the air cleanly. The little that I have seen make it hard to discern the effect of Bernoulli’s principle on the shape of the White Motorcycle.

    Tenacious D channel the Beatles

    Tenacious D are better known for their homage pieces to metal bands. For a charity single donating to Doctors Without Borders – they try and channel The Beatles. Its hard as The Beatles had so many sounds that they changed abruptly and crashed into each other.

    I think they did pretty well.

    Stories, players and games

    Nigel Scott has put together an interesting set of ideas on business and marketing. There’s some bits I’d disagree with (are Google, Facebook et al really changing the game, or just costing marketers more?). Really worthwhile going through it all here.

    Akira behind the scenes

    This brief look behind the scenes looks like an excerpt from a longer programme. But it gives an idea into the work which went into making the animated film Akira. The precision and level of detail is mind boggling.

    Gimme 5 mixes

    Gimme 5, the label of long time streetwear distributor Michael Kopelman have a library of good mixes up on Soundcloud and I have been listening to their back catalogue. They’re worthwhile listening to for their eclectic mix of material.

    #MyAppleDaily art project

    Chinese artist Badiucao is publishing a blank template of the paper’s front page for each day that the Apple Daily isn’t published. The idea is to encourage people to publish their own front page instead.

    More from Badiucao here.

    my apple daily introduction

  • Hawker markets & things this week

    Hawker markets

    Eating out is an important part of life in many Asian countries. Cheap eats in Singapore are provided by hawker markets. Imagine Asian street food, if it was run by Germans. They had a similar tradition to hawkers called da pai dang (大牌檔). But the Hong Kong government has slowly squeezed them out and there are now less than 25 left. Instead I used to usually go to small hole in the wall restaurants. Da pai dang are treasured by Hong Kong citizens; hawker markets are treasured by the Singaporean people and their government. Singaporean channel Our Grandfather Story put together a video on how to support offline hawker markets. Its also a great critique of online food services.

    MiniDisc

    Sony’s MiniDisc format was a fascinating format. Friends of mine used it to record DJ mixes as it gave better quality than cassette taps. But it never beat out the humble compact cassette as a universal media. I went from cassette tapes to recordable CDs. MiniDisc operated in an interesting technological and temporal space.

    It is a very cyberpunk retro-futuristic looking media. The optical disc in the protected diskette case. If you wanted data safe, secure and offline, then this form factor looks sensible. And Sony’s Blu-Ray in a diskette is used for archiving purposes today by Sony and Panasonic under the format name Archival Disc.

    When I look at the MiniDisc, I think of dinky portable player / recorders that were almost like the watch-makers art. If it hadn’t existed, anime and manga artists would have created it as a fictional device.

    It had a second life as a pre-iPod format that offered the shareability of cassette mixtapes.

    The secret life of MiniDisc in Japan is fascinating. All of the above factors and more are featured in this documentary.

    Apple Daily

    Hong Kong’s national security police arrested senior journalists at the Apple Daily.

    Hong Kong police arrest editor-in-chief of Apple Daily newspaper in morning raids | Hong Kong | The Guardian – Steve Li Kwai-wah, head of the police’s national security division, said there was “very strong evidence that the questionable articles played a very crucial part in the conspiracy, which provided ammunition for foreign countries, institutions and organisations to impose sanctions,” adding that those arrested played “a very important role” in their publication. The articles reportedly date back to 2019. Authorities have made repeated assurances since the implementation of the controversial and wide-ranging national security law in June 2020 that it was not retroactive.

    They seized journalist computer hard drives, money and materials. The Apple Daily team didn’t let that hold them back and live-streamed the publication of their early edition of Friday’s paper.

    Hong Kongers came out to support the newspaper, queuing and buying multiple copies of the Apple Daily paper at news stand as soon as the early edition was published.

    They have an English language version of the Apple Daily paper here and I urge you to consider subscribing via the Apple app store or the Google Play store.

    You don’t have to subscribe because the Apple Daily is the lone free voice in Hong Kong media; universally disliked by those in charge (and many who wish they were in charge). You can subscribe for Chinese and Hong Kong coverage that you wouldn’t otherwise see in English language media. Such as Alibaba’s Taobao e-commerce platform having over a billion data records taken. A huge hack not mentioned elsewhere yesterday in the media.