时间：2022-09-15 02:08:49
Geography is so twentieth century
When IT comes to work, geography doesn’t matter anymore. Even in smaller companies, a growing number of people now operate in teams spread across continents. They use standardized information technology platforms for laptop computers, e-mail addresses, mobile phones, and intranet access. Whether you’re in Singapore or Sunnyvale, Calif., is irrelevant. With portable phone numbers and e-mail addresses, in fact, it can be tough to pinpoint where someone is on the planet. Meanwhile, two people on the same city block can be working in different time zones to serve a far-flung customer base. At 7 a.m., one could be ending the day with a martini while the other munches on cereal.
While the post-geographic world has made it possible for far-flung workers to collaborate like neighbors, there are challenges. Your Shanghai team members may be waking up just as the Chicago-based folks are going home―and London may need you online at 3 a.m. The result is a day that could conceivably span 24 hours, if the limits of human biology didn’t kick in. People must learn to work to the ebb and flow of their own schedule―and reach out in new ways. Though geography may have become less relevant, the need for community never goes away.
What business really craves: Simplicity
Think of it as option fatigue. Why fumble with one of five remotes in your chip-slicked hands when you can press one button, and voila, it works! Simplicity is the latest buzz in management and design. With the need to work faster and better, who has the time for owners’manuals? Thus a new premium is being accorded to ease of use. The iPod nano nails it. So do Rocio Romero’s Spartan, up-in-four-days prefab homes and Jura Capresso’s one-button espresso makers. Complexity has become a hazard in pushing products. The new trend is to strip things down to their basics and make products intuitive. In 2005, less was more.
At Bernanke’s Fed, more cards on the table
Inflation targeting: Out with obfuscation, in with clarity. While Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan preserved a wizard-like aura of mystery about setting interest rates, the man who succeeds him in January advocates a more transparent approach. Former Princeton University professor Ben S. Bernanke argues that the Fed should announce a target level for future inflation and then issue regular updates on whether it thinks it’s on track to hit that objective. He hopes more openness will inspire investor confidence and keep market rates stable. It seems to work in countries such as Britain, Sweden, Canada, South Korea, and Brazil. Critics warn that an inflation-targeting Fed might be too inflexible in a crisis, but Bernanke promises to use “constrained discretion”.
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