Boston Red Sox Win World Series

Baseball is an industry. The customers are the fans who buy tickets to see the game, or spend money in other ways (food, alcohol, shirts, general donations). To obtain higher profits, a team needs more fans. (Public funds often go to baseball teams as well which also represent fans. Thus, teams are usually based in large cities to encourage a great many people to come see the team play. New York has had an advantage as it is such a large city, by default there are a lot of fans which come to see the games, providing them a large profit (so much so, that the large city can support two baseball teams). The suppliers are the players on the baseball team, which must be paid highly for there services.

To have a high fan base to get high profits, either the city has to be large (like New York) or have another tactic or theme to gain a lot of fans. For Boston, the theme was "the Curse of Bambino". This curse made a cohesive force for the people of Boston and made them extreme fans. This curse was Boston's competitive advantage. Thus, people came to see them because they lose. (Other teams have many fans because they always win, since it is always fun to watch a winner.) Boston enjoyed revelling in their misery, shouting "Yankee's suck" no matter whom they were playing against.

But now Boston has won the world series, which gave them a short term large amount of fans. But the question is what will be Boston's strategy from now on? They have lost the "curse" which functioned as their past competitive advantage. They have little option now but to try for the "winner" tactic for gaining fans, which is much more difficult to do. Such a huge change in brand will be extremely difficult to do successfully. It is unclear whether they will be able to do it. I predict that in the coming years we will see a significant downturn in the number of Boston fans and thus profit if they do not continue to win the world series every few years.

Malpractice Suit Against Disney Directors

Disney lawsuit could ripple through Corporate America:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2004-10-18-disney-ovitz-lawsuit_x.htm

The suit against Disney is in protest about the general assumptions of corporate governance. The stockholders have placed a suit against the board of directors. This is incredible since usually in a corporation, stockholders and board members are not personally liable except in the case of corporate fraud. However, in this case the board members are being sued for not properly doing their job and not acting in the best interest of the shareholders. The board of directors are required by law to act in the best interest of the stockholders. However, there has never been a case where stockholders have sued for remuneration because of business negligence. Instead, the board of directors are usually voted out by the stockholders.

If the plaintiffs win, this could be very significant since it would dramatically change the boundaries of personal liability for managers of a corporation. Because personal liabilities are removed, the directors of a corporation can be more gutsy in attempting businesses with low probability of success. However, it also removes a level of responsibility for their decisions.

I think that directors should be somewhat personally liable for their decisions. The corporation provides too much shelter in its current formation. On a related note, the corporation's stucture frees the directors of personal liability for the social consequences of the company. i think that these decisions are even more important, and I think that the directors who make the decisions should have some responsibility for the decisions they make that impact the environment around us.

Blogging for Business

Blogs have become popular not only with teeny-boppers, but also with corporate honchos:
http://businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2004/tc2004089_3601_tc024.htm

When I first heard of blogs, I thought they were a very funny thing. I kept wondering, "Why don't they just update their webpage?" And I assumed that blogs were kept by people who "want to be heard", but usually don't have very much affect during their day. When we were required to have a blog in our class, I must admit that this seemed like a rather silly request to me. But after reading this article, reading several blogs from people from different walks of life, and creating my own blog, I have begun to see the benefits of the blog and why even corporate head honchos could want one.

Connectedness Brings Trust (Nonmarket Environment)
After reading several people's blogs, it is shocking how connected I feel with them. I first thought that I would only feel connected because people are sharing their inner-most feelings, and that I would feel as if I were reading their diary. But this is not the case. People are really writing to be read, by anyone. They are happy to share with me. And most importantly they seem like a real person to me. Even if for just a short moment, I become invested in what they are talking about. In the corporate world, this can have amazing effects. Take for example, the blog of Jonathan Schwartz http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan, he provides us with mostly updates on the company, but because it is a blog, he adds small interesting facts of his life. Without these facts, his blog would read like one big ad, but instead, it is an interesting insight into the life of one person at Sun. The blog almost allows us to become on intimate terms with Jonathan; we know he likes kangaroo meat and shiraz. Because people have more faith in their friends and acquaintances than strangers, the blog somehow gives us more faith in Jonathan, and thus what he says about the company. The blog is a fantastic tool for building public trust, and thus positively affecting the nonmarket enviroment.

Other Benefits:
I have noticed other benefits to blogs lately as well:

• There seem to be many anonymous blogs. Blogs seem to be a wonderful way of getting out pent up emotion when there is no one else to share it with. I found a blog about someone coming out of the closet in the South and the emotions that it is bringing up for his family. He has found a lot of support from other bloggers. (Before then, I had not seen an anonymous blog.)
• Updating a blog is MUCH easier than updating a webpage, and I update them constantly!

Conan O'Brien to take over "The Tonight Show"

NBC reported on September 27th that Conan O'Brien would take over the helm at "The Tonight Show" from Jay Leno in 2009.

Here are a few links on the story:
http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/entertainment/9826132.htm
http://www.troyrecord.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=13034147&BRD=1170&PAG=461&dept_id=32272&rfi=6

Leno's contract does not expire for 5 more years. So, we would expect that NBC would have some time before deciding if they want to renew Leno's contract or if not deciding whom they want to replace him with. But the network decided with firm conviction that they wanted O'Brien after Leno, and wanted to make certain that they got him when the time came.

"NBC executives approached [Leno], saying they didn't want to lose O'Brien. He endorsed the move and set his own 2009 exit date, when he'll be 59."
Changing "administrations" can be a sensitive topic for the exiting "administration". Traditionally, changeovers occur as quickly as possible to prevent hostility from the existing "administration". However, NBC 1) fears O'Brien will be lured away by a competitor, and 2) wants to avoid the horrible transition that occurred between Carson and Leno that caused them to lose Letterman, and also caused some unpleasantness for Leno. A quick turnover this will be not, since Leno has a contract for the next five years, and this could be a sensitive issue for Leno. They want to replace him with O'Brien, and they almost replaced him with O'Brien before his last contract. If NBC does not play this right, Leno could be bitter to be losing his spot. NBC wants Leno to be happy so that he will continue to host a really good show. They need to show Leno that they have and do appreciate his abilities as a talk show host (which is certainly true as he has done wonderful things to the ratings). NBC has cleverly discussed this first with Leno, allowing him to feel that he is setting his own end date. Leno will be 59 and has emphasized that this is an ideal time for him so that he can take his wife out, as promised to dinner. NBC also involved Leno in the changeover by reminding them of how horrible his changeover was and expressed how they wanted to do a better job this time. By giving Leno some implied power (whether not he really had any power is definitely up for debate) in the decision making process, they assured a more amicable transition.

"[NBC] cut off early competitors to steal away O'Brien"
O'Brien is certainly a highly valued commodity. NBC almost hired him to replace Leno right after Leno's last contract ran out. Fox and other networks have signaled their desire to steal him away from NBC. NBC has the inside advantage in that O'Brien currently works for NBC. But they need to take advantage of it soon to make sure that they can keep O'Brien. His young age (guaranteeing many more years of high ratings) and popularity (2.5 million viewers nightly) make him the obvious next choice for a successor.

Age
I stop to wonder about Leno's age of 59. Is Leno really going to be too old to do the show? Is O'Brien's age of 46 really a distinct advantage? Both shows are most popular with eh 18-49 crowd according to the Nielsen ratings. Does Leno's old age appeal to an older crowd? Is it too late for his viewers to stay up to watch? Will Leno move to a show with an earlier time slot, or will he really retire as he has planned. It is interesting to note that I think older viewers watch "The Tonight Show", and younger viewers watch Conan, perhaps because of Conan's earlier time slot as well as his younger interpretation on the events. I wonder if they will replace Conan's current slot with a new 30-year-old fresh new face.

Sex
I notice that all of the late night shows are hosted by men. I wonder if the viewer demographics are mostly male. The site http://nbckicks.tripod.com/factory.html mentions the following quote: "Late-night comedy writing is a predominately male occupation, perhaps because the hosts are men, and the humor is often about male adolescent anxieties. Of 12 writers on "Late Night," only two are women. "Very few women apply for these jobs," Ross says. " I can't help but wonder if there is a market out there for a woman hosted late-night show, I imagine a punchy and quick-witted 37-year-old. I wonder if there are no women hosts because they haven't been tried or if there really is no viewer base for such a show.

On a side note: Tony Blair:
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/comment/0,9236,1318134,00.html
Tony Blair is also planning to step down in 5 years. His choice of five years is interesting for many reasons. 1) People are rather unhappy about him right now because of the Iraq war. 2) He is very sick, and may not even make it for the next 5 years. 3) If he stays for the next 5 years he will have stayed longer than the 11.5 record of his predecessor Margaret Thatcher. All three of these reasons seem to suggest that he should get out of there earlier. But to those who want him out, there is certainly some appeasement offered in the idea that they know he will be out in the next five years. I feel like without this promise there is no way that he will last the next 5 years. His statement seems to say "all right! I am leaving already!" But his statement has a trick in that he says this, but by saying that he will step down in 5 years, he is actually probably able to extend his stay longer than he would be able to without it. People are willing to wait if they are positive that he will leave. So his move was intelligent. He was able to appease his dissenters while allowing him to stay longer than he may have been able to with a high positive opinion. Clever.

Classmate's Blogs

Blogs from MIT Sloan 15.965

Vikrant Agnihotri http://15965vikrant.blogspot.com/
Yishai Boasson http://15965yishai-boasson.blogspot.com/
Tripti Gore Chnadorkar http://tripti.blogspot.com/
Ajit Dash http://drajit.blogspot.com/
Anubhav Gupta http://strategicconspiracytheory.blogspot.com/
Tracy Hammond http://15965tracyhammond.blogspot.com/
Josh McConnell http://jmite2.blogspot.com
Diana Wu http://dwu713.blogspot.com/