Here's a novel idea

David Droga, the creative big and founder of the start-up Droga5, is working with the New York City Department of Education to solve the age-old problem of students viewing academic achievement as uncool or irrelevant. The program skips the lectures and public-service announcements and instead involves giving away to each student free mobile phones packed with learning tools such as a thesaurus, spell checks and an extra-help tip line. The more a student uses these learning applications, the more rewards -- discounts for movies, sneakers, clothes and music downloads, as well as air-time minutes and text messages -- are unlocked.

"She's an MBA!"

It has been said that the entire business school experience can be broken into two parts: 1) Autumn quarter core, and 2) everything else.

This is the closest description to my own b-school experience I've come across. Nicely written and rings true. I'd recommend a read.

A real-life experiment

A recent experiment in the realm of quantum physics has shown that reality does not exist, when there is no observer.

Read article here.

EMI Moves to non-DRM Music

How again is this going to make EMI more money?

Americans are rather intolerant of nekkidness

Good - Sunshine.
Bad - Dubai's image.
Ugly - Timbaland's Shock Value album.

In other news...

The final details were hammered out over the past week, advertisers were called the night before and Google's Eric Schmidt was reached the morning of NBC and News Corp.'s blockbuster announcement about a joint online video venture. After months of speculation, News Corp. and NBC Universal announced this week that they would create an online distribution system together for TV content. And by partnering with portals AOL, MSN, Yahoo and MySpace, the yet-unnamed distribution venture would reach 94% of the U.S. Internet audience.

Article here.

So like, I'm sitting at Harvard Ave. Cafe enjoying my Friday off and sipping my Earl Grey and surfing their free wireless and gazing lasciviously at the banana nut muffin on the counter and I have to ask - why do all cafes that want you to linger and spend a couple of hours there with the comfy couches and the indie art on the walls ALWAYS and without exception play Bob Marley? Is there a secret underground cafe network that dictates this? I swear, in any city in the U.S., they're all playing Bob Marley. Marley sales rise everytime a new cafe opens up. I wonder if they know this. Maybe the Marley people secretly own a piece of every such cafe in the U.S. That would be a good business model.

I've been away

And the reason I've been away is because I'm busy blogging about the 2nd Annual International Business Tech Strategy Case Competition. Be sure to check it out and see what some of the best b-school students are up to this weekend. There are pictures too!

Two new BU blogs

Be sure to check out Mastering IT Strategy and The Fournism of Brands: Why we find them compelling, the latest BU blogs to enter the discussion. Feel free to comment and discuss with some very bright marketing and technology professionals.

Le pain, c'est la vie

The Poilâne bakery in France is run by the founder's granddaughter, who holds to tradition while carefully integrating technology—and studying at Harvard. Now here's a success story in the making.