Read time: 3 minutes

1Quarterly Earnings Guidance Needs to Die
Every three months, the leaders of public companies lock eyes with the investment analysts of Wall St. and dance the tango of the “quarterly earnings guidance.” In theory, this practice is corporate transparency in action, as companies bare their books to investors — reporting both how they performed over the previous three months, and forecasting what investors can expect in the near future. In practice, this theory ignores the distorting effect on corporate governance that such a short-term focus inevitably creates.

Fortunately, the days of this practice being the norm are already over {less than a third of public companies do it). A growing chorus of corporate leaders are making their voices heard on behalf of the obligation to create long-term value and include the interests of both employees and the general public beyond just “shareholder value” in making business decisions.

Here’s an excellent read on the topic by the recently departed Lynn Stout, Professor of Business and Corporate Law at Cornell University:


2R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Find Out What It Means to Me
If you’re interested in cultivating a powerful culture of engaged people, you cannot ignore the role of respect and how it is communicated by leaders and felt by employees. This article digs into respect, breaking it into two types that offer an interesting way to think about it:

Owed respect is accorded equally to all members of a work group or an organization; it meets the universal need to feel included. … Earned respect recognizes individual employees who display valued qualities or behaviors. It distinguishes employees who have exceeded expectations and, particularly in knowledge work settings, affirms that each employee has unique strengths and talents. Earned respect meets the need to be valued for doing good work.”

Get this stuff wrong, and you’ll likely find the Queen of Soul‘s words come to life:

you might walk in (respect, just a little bit)
And find out I’m gone (just a little bit)
I got to have (just a little bit)
A little respect (just a little bit)


3Origami and Soft Robotics
Researchers with the Air Force Research Lab up the road at Wright-Patterson AFB are working on developing a way for a “soft robot” to move, store and transmit information without using electricity at all. Instead of power coursing through electrical circuits, this research uses controlled humidity and the ancient Japanese principles of origami to manipulate sheets of polypropelene.


4Blue Light, Red Light
Stop and think of the future for a moment. Do you see an image in your head of what it looks like? Now, here’s the question: is it bathed in the hues of blue light, or the amber tones of red/orange light? Chances are, the answer is blue, and that’s largely due to the fact that blue light is what characterizes technology in the here and now. This article not only examines the detrimental effects of constantly subjecting our rods and cones to the blue light of tech, but how pop culture has influenced the shift in our imaginations to blue (from the red/orange reality).

Also, for your listening pleasure and as an exhibition of how my brain’s idea-association engine works, here’s what came to my mind as I read this piece. And yes, I switched my Amazon Music player to “more like this” while I worked thereafter.


5Why Google Has Won the Map Race
For sheer serendipitous reading enjoyment this week, I’ve saved the best for last. That is, if you enjoy a geeky investigation behind the scenes of a product you likely use quite regularly: Google Maps. The level of effort and attention to detail Google has put into its free-to-use mapping app is staggering. On a meta-level, the author put that same level of effort and attention to detail into the research and illustration of this piece. His work is a glorious example of the kind of excellence and generosity I wrote about last week in Forbes.