Category: Business

Wikipedia, St. Pete’s Tech Giant Turns 20

Wikipedia turns 20 this Friday, January 15, 2021, on what is known as “Wikipedia Day” around the world. Launched on January 15, 2001, “To create and freely distribute a free encyclopedia in all the languages of the world.” Wikipedia now contains more than 55 million articles, written by human volunteers in hundreds of languages. With 1.7 …

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Competition, Not Regulation Drives GMO Transparency

In March 2013 Whole Foods Market put “a stake in the ground on GMO labeling” by announcing that by 2018 all products sold by the grocery chain would be labeled indicating any included genetically modified organisms in order to provide full GMO transparency to customers. The announcement occurred around the same time as failed efforts by consumer activists to petition the federal government …

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‘Mad Men’ was a decade-long whale hunt antagonized by an economist

The series finale of ‘Mad Men’ closed a fictional window to the 1960s. Women’s and civil rights, The Beatles, Serge Gainsbourg and The Doors, the introduction of birth control and realization that cigarettes cause cancer. The series remained authentic by intertwining itself with events of the decade. The crash of American Airlines Flight 1, the assassinations of John F Kennedy …

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Iconic Brands Continue to Ignore Trend, Refuse to Innovate

News this week that Sears and Kmart will close 235 stores along with JCPenney’s continued decent reaffirm my belief that the true value of these iconic brands is being ignored. In the case of JCPenney, unimaginative executives struggle to increase sales with awkward marketing stunts in a retail industry that is returning to its roots. While the brands of yesterday are suffering slow …

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Work Revolution Needed for Tampa Bay Transit Plans

The top priority of improving our transportation network is to reduce congestion which would improve the quality of life and make our region more attractive to top employers and professionals. Infrastructure and bus improvements short of rail will certainly assist with relieving congestion; and with continued political efforts can be brought to reality. But will these initiatives ever really ease …

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Ignoring This Trend Could Ruin Startup Incubators

For a while I have expressed concern about the future of startup business incubators that are not only in Tampa Bay but everywhere. Tampa Bay Innovation Center president Tonya Elmore noted in the Tampa Bay Times last year that every “city council member in every town wants an incubator now that startups like Facebook glamorized entrepreneurship”. The article estimates …

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For Social Enterprise Potential, Look Back at Globalization

During discussions about the Conscious Capitalism and Benefit Corporation movement or my own book Corporate Empathy the conversation often has some focus on social entrepreneurship and social enterprises and what the potential is for these kinds of businesses. According to Wikipedia, “a social enterprise is an organization that applies commercial strategies to maximize improvements in human and environmental well-being, rather than …

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