Commentary
Virgin on Business: Too Big to Derail?
Banking has certainly changed, but it has managed to avoid the disruption that upended other industries.
Lets do a quick review of the list of service businesses that have been disrupted by the internet. Retailing? Thoroughly. Communications? No doubt. Media? We could tell you stories. Travel and tourism? They could tell you stories as well about how customers get information and book their own travel arrangements these days. Banking? Hmm, theres…
Hard Accounting for Soft Assets
How to add a billion dollars worth of green to Seattles books.
The building boom thats driving up real estate prices and jamming Seattle with housing and high-rises is also squeezing out and devaluing the citys green, open spaces. That progress presents a paradox: Hard assets provide value temporarily during their useful lives; green, or soft, assets provide value forever. But the city sees dollar value in…
Final Analysis: The Buddy System
When the desultory style of Seattles mayor leaves you wishing for a felon.
Friends and I were talking recently about one of Seattles infrastructure problems dont remember if it was the abysmal traffic, rising homelessness, the messy waterfront and I said, as I often do in these situations, Maybe its time for Buddy Cianci. All told, Vincent A. Buddy Cianci, who died in January, was mayor of Providence,…
Who Needs Regulation?
The debate about rules for the sharing economy creates its own kind of disruption.
There have been two great waves of the American deregulation debate. The first was during the Carter-Reagan era, when entire industries airlines, railroads, trucking, natural gas, long-distance telephone service were freed from government constraints on what markets they served and what prices they charged. And the second? Youre experiencing it right now. You might not…
Final Analysis: Am I Ready to Share a Bike?
On a recent visit to New York City, I marveled at the sheer bravery of the people using Citi Bike, New Yorks bike-share program. Or maybe it was their audacity that struck me. Many of these helmetless people weaving around delivery trucks and taxicabs and metro buses seemed to be my age which equates to…
Editor’s Note: All Aboard!
Light rail in Seattle has been a disappointment. The train trip from downtown to the airport, for example, usually takes nearly twice as long as by car. But with two new stations opening up recently in hard-to-reach locations, commuters may finally begin to see value in the system. Hop on the train at Westlake Center…
CEO Adviser: The Art of Making Change
If you keep doing what youve always been doing, youll keep getting what youve always gotten. Im sure youve heard some version of this saying. Youve read it in a dozen books; youve heard it in a dozen motivational speeches. (If that last part is true, congratulations on surviving a dozen motivational speeches.) If you…
How “Banksters” caused the great depression and led to the Glass-Steagall Banking Act.
The aftermath of a financial panic bread lines, foreclosures, falls from great power make for good drama. The causes of one, not so much. The Oscar-winning film, The Big Short shows how creative you have to get to explain the flaws of a collateralized debt obligation. That hasnt deterred a small Seattle theater company, whose…
Virgin on Business: Who Needs Regulation?
There have been two great waves of the American deregulation debate. The first was during the Carter-Reagan era, when entire industries airlines, railroads, trucking, natural gas, long-distance telephone service were freed from government constraints on what markets they served and what prices they charged. And the second? Youre experiencing it right now. You might not…
Final Analysis: The Buddy System
Friends and i were talking recently about one of Seattles infrastructure problems dont remember if it was the abysmal traffic, rising homelessness, the messy waterfront and I said, as I often do in these situations, Maybe its time for Buddy Cianci. All told, Vincent A. Buddy Cianci, who died in January, was mayor of Providence,…
Letters to the Editor
Our readers weigh in.
THE YEAR OF THE CRANEKudos to John Levesque on his Year in Business column in the December issue of Seattle magazine (published simultaneously as Final Analysis in Seattle Business). Its a tour-de-farce of acerbic and accurate insight into Seattles growing pains from the tunnel not being dug by Bertha to the Potola Pit just a…
Virgin on Business: Testing, Testing
Companies that don't try out all those crazy ideas are, well, crazy.
Somewhere in the acres of South Lake Union real estate that Amazon now occupies is the secret lab where the company comes up with its next big idea. Maybe it looks like a movie-cliche mad-scientist lab, with bubbling beakers and electrical apparatus throwing off sparks. Maybe its a room decorated in tech-sector-employee lounge motif, with…
Final Analysis: Forceful Marketing
Tying in to 'Star Wars' is obviously the clever approach.
Since the premiere of Star Wars: The Force Awakens in mid-December, social media sites have been awash in the kind of piggyback promotion that accompanies any pop-culture phenomenon. The savvy marketer, knowing that a Star Wars connection confers instantaneous hotness and coolness, is on it like a baggy robe on a skinny Sith. Drawing inspiration…