Worth Reading: Stafford Beer-Brian Eno, M&A and R&D
Personal Research ProgramThe Stafford Beer-Brian Eno Connection: Alex Hough of Manchester Business School mentions how the cybernetics scientist Stafford Beer influenced musician and producer Brian Eno. Beer also influenced a generation of researchers and practitioners in modular organisational design, management, and systems thinking. Eno's collaborator Robert Fripp w

The Damned United: Leadership Lessons
Tom Hooper's The Damned United (2009) dramatises Brian Clough's 44-day stint as Leeds United football coach. You don't have to be an English football film to appreciate the film which is a cautionary lesson on leadership, set in the downtrodden, rainy Northern English landscape that has become a Screen Yorkshire aesthetic.Clough (Michael Sheen) makes several classic mistakes which self-saboages his leadership. He accepts the job because of personal animus with his predecessor Don Reavey (Colm Meaney),

Worth Reading
Personal Research ProgramSlate's Daniel Gross on why Conde Nast closed Gourmet: Gross contends CN's decision is a 'capitulation' indicator to leave a market, and it needed a McKinsey's report to cut costs.The New York Times has an interactive feature on CN's shrinking portfolio of publications.ACSPRI's 2010 summer program on mixed methods research.The New Yorker's George Packer on

Worth Reading
Personal Research ProgramMcKinsey asks Conde Nast for an across-the-board 25% cut to its expenditure budgets.US M&A deal flow is on the rise, such as the Xerox-ACS deal (CNBC video).The New Yorker's John Cassidy on the 'rational irrationality' of financial markets.How

Worth Reading
Personal Research ProgramTwitter's Latest Valuation: $1 Billion.McKinsey to cut Conde Nast magazine budgets by 25%?David Elstein's Beesley Lecture on public media in the digital age and Guardian commentary.