More than a decade ago Peter Sheahan left his accounting job to work in a pub and manage a hotel in Sydney, Australia. Managing the staff of about 35 wasn’t easy—especially difficult was relaying expectations to younger staff members. “I thought, ‘wouldn’t it be great to teach workplace expectations in a school setting?’” Sheahan says. But before long, he realized most management struggles are rooted in leadership, rather than simply worker discipline. READ MORE
With Groupon adding 150 employees a month, and LivingSocial’s third office space already bursting at the seams, the Associated Press reports that deal sites are becoming so popular that their office are starting to look as crowded as their subscribers’ inboxes. Exponential growth of these sites—including hundreds of clone or niche deal sites—might look like a bubble. READ MORE
“Do you see acquiring more content companies like TechCrunch and HuffPo?” Michael Arrington pointedly asked his boss-and-AOL chief Tim Armstrong yesterday at TechCrunch Disrupt, the annual tech conference and start-up competition put on in New York by the site Arrington founded and co-edits. There was an uncomfortable silence. Then a hedge. Then Armstrong admitted that after a year in which he bought not only TechCrunch but also Huffington Post, he’s still looking and “has a list in his head” of five or ten businesses in the content space in which he’s interested. READ MORE
If you follow the grandchildren of mechanical engineer and inventor H.W. Smith Jr., that theory certainly looks promising. The New York Times tells the story of how grandchildren Nick and Billy Smith a few years ago uncovered a parachutelike sail invention their grandfather had stored in his attic. READ MORE
New research from MIT’s Sloan School of Management suggests this is the case. The MIT study revealed that each additional co-founder—up to four—increase’s a company’s odds of success. Panelists at the Google I/O Conference concurred with the research, citing how venture capitalists prefer investing in companies with multiple founders. READ MORE
Do you ever feel like all the great programmers already have jobs? That’s because they do. So we asked some experts for advice and present these seven tips for hiring the best talent. READ MORE
The woman who topped the list of the 100 Most Creative People in Business by our sister publication, Fast Company, Lady Gaga, is turning on the in-game marketing. Specifically, she’s going to be debuting her new album inside the uber-popular Facebook game FarmVille. That’s right, you’ll hear new tracks from her album, Born This Way exclusively inside the game, made by Zynga. Don’t think you can just login and sit back with your headphones on, though: The in-game marketing experiment requires players to complete tasks and enter a Gaga-themed neighboring farm dubbed “GagaVille.” According to the Associated Press, the songs will be unlocked in GagaVille between May 17 and 19, and the album is released on May 23. READ MORE
Your customers hoard airline miles and covet their status-symbol black American Express. Countless start-ups are incorporating game-design strategies, hoping to eventually grow revenue off of consumer data, or by using a combination of data plus game-mechanics to influence consumer behaviors. What was once called “consumer incentives” is now known as “gamification.” READ MORE
Before Facebook and Twitter, there was Friendster. At its peak, the site had over 100 million users, but in recent years the site has seen a steady decline in new registrants, especially as a flurry of younger and more nimble social start-ups entered the market. But the “ghost town,” over at Friendster’s offices, as the New York Times puts it, is poised for change. READ MORE
When the iPad was introduced a year ago, critics complained it was simply a bigger version of the iPhone—without the actual ability to make a phone call. The iPad and its competitors have since proven themselves highly useful both for consumer and for commercial use. Goldman Sachs forecasts tablets will account for 17 percent of all wireless data demand by 2020, as reported by All Things Digital this morning. READ MORE
