Sneaker wars: Adidas and Puma

Yes, there really was a sneaker war. I’ve always found this story interesting — the feud between German brothers, Adi and Rudolf Dassler who dissolved their shoe-making business many years ago to set up rival sneaker businesses Adidas and Puma (I’m partial to the later). Both successful businesses and popular brands are now coming together, many years after the founders went to their graves mid-feud. Though the reason for their rivalry is still unknown, the book about their story, Sneaker Wars might be a good read. Here’s more on the story in the New York Times.

The joy of less (min for the max)

A great piece by Pico Iyer, The Joy of Less, in the New York Times, in which he captures the essence of my personal philosophy — Minimum for the Maximum (minformax) — though he says it all much better….

The baobab goes global

Growing up in Africa, I never gave much thought to the baobab tree even though it was pretty familiar to me. But now the baobab is about to hit the big time as experts have discovered the varied and healthful uses of the tree, which is “rich in antioxidants, potassium and phosphorus, and has six times as much vitamin C as oranges and twice as much calcium as milk.”

Africans have long used parts of the baobab to heal everything from malaria to toothaches. But if the essence of the tree becomes popular in the Western world, there are potential consequences for the supply in Africa and the few other parts of the world where it grows.

I’ll have to check out how it ends up being packaged and marketed to us next time I’m at Whole Foods, but in the meantime, here’s the New York Times look at What Will Happen When the Baobab Goes Global?

Profiting from our digital relationships

Mining our digital relationships for insights that could lead to lucrative revenue streams — MIT, IBM and every company rushing to find a successful social media business model is looking into this. BusinessWeek takes a look at how companies are Learning, and Profiting, from Online Friendships.

International man of misery: Jeffrey Sachs

This month on Portfolio.com, an interesting in-depth profile of philanthropist and poverty’s chief public intellectual Jeffrey Sachs: International Man of Misery.

A festival of electronica: Short Circuit

I wish I was in London for this one … Short Circuit: A Festival of Electronica, held at the Roundhouse, May 14-17th. But fortunately, there’s a live broadcast of the whole thing, a chronology of noteworthy artists in electronica over the decades.

The impressive lineup features producers, labels, artists and influencers from Germany, Barcelona and the UK. Sounds like a great primer for those into elecronic music.

Thinking of Sri Lanka

Given the recent onslaught of turmoil in Sri Lanka, I wonder when I’ll manage to return for a visit to the place where I was born. The stories are abundant of the killing, the homelessness and suffering. It has been at least two decades since I was last in Colombo with my family, and it’s taken me many years of growing up to grow into my culture and truly appreciate it.

The New York Time’s bureau chief in India, Somini Sengupta, captured for the Times her return to her birth place of Calcutta and I read her account, which is filled with great tips for travelers, pondering what my own return to Sri Lanka might be like.

International paradox: Growth without profit

Here’s an interesting article in the New York Times today about the growing demand for online content in emerging markets like Africa and India — which should potentially be a good thing.

The ‘International Paradox’ means that content-rich services such as social media (from Facebook to YouTube) are finding that enormous numbers of users in these markets are sucking up bandwidth — without any corresponding revenue growth. Read on: In Developing Countries, Web Grows Without Profit.

Still an Idealab

Nearly a decade after rising to popularity during the dotcom boom and then melting into obscurity, Idealab is surprisingly still around.

Every time I pass by the offices in downtown Pasadena, about five minutes from where I live, I wonder what’s going on at the incubator that put so many Web startups on the map. If you’re wondering too, their investments — sidestepping much of today’s popular stuff like Web 2.0 technologies — show strategic plays in security, energy and robotics. Like many investors in Southern California and elsewhere today, Idealab seems to be just flying below the radar.

Employee retention lessons from In-N-Out

Most Californians have indulged in local favorites like Jamba Juice, Baha Fresh and of course In-N-Out Burger (I went through a low-carb phase years ago relying on their bunless, lettuce-wrapped cheeseburgers). For those not familiar with the burger chain, In-N-Out is a bit of an oddity in the fast food industry — it’s healthy, cheap, has a very limited menu and it’s not usually fast… it’s very rare to find a location where there isn’t a line up around the block waiting for the drive-through.

I knew about the religious background of this chain (there are biblical references on the bottom of their cups), but I didn’t know a lot about its successful business practices. A new book by Stacy Perman delves into the details of how the chain remains successful — by focusing on its people. Of note, the chain grows organically — opening stores only when new management grows from within employee ranks. Managers make 100K plus bonuses. As a result of their best practices, they have a low turnover rate, which is a rarity in the fast food industry.

If you’re interested in the story, BusinessWeek also has a good article on how In-N-Out is professionalizing fast food. And of course, next time you’re in California, try the burgers.