Year Past and Future from Blogs

>>Broc Romanek of TheCorporateCounsel.com takes a learned look at the top governance issues of 2006, which look likely to spill into 2007. He calls 2006 “arguably the most dramatic year of change in recent history.”

>>Richard MacManus of Read/WriteWeb offers the results of his readers’ voting on the top trends in technology to watch in 2007.  Think video.

>>Eagle-eyed Michelle Leder of footnoted.org reads all the fine print of SEC filing so we don’t have to. Here, the biggest corporate boner of the year. And it’s a doozie.

Ethical Winners and Losers for 2006

From MarketWatch.com

Lord love a list — here are two nifty ones, which don’t exactly hold surprises, but it’s nice to award kudos where they’re due. Among the good guys: Muhammed Yunus, The Iraq Study Group and Warren Buffet. The bad guys: Jack Abramoff, Patricia Dunn and Judith Regan.

Intrigue for a Bug

From The Wall Street Journal ($)

Not just because I own and am moderately happy with a VW Beetle, I am fascinated by the boardroom intrigue at the German carmaker. In a nutshell, the former CEO is now the most powerful shareholder and director, and he’s exerted extreme pressure to reinstate his own management on the company. Out is the director of the VW brand, Wolfgang Bernhard, who also happens to have commanded investor confidenct:  “Volkswagen’s market value rose nearly $1.25 billion on the day in October 2004 that [former CEO Bernd ]Pischetsrieder announced he had recruited the former Chrysler executive to the company.”

Oh, and did I mention that that powerful shareholder/director, Ferdinand Piech, is also on the board of Porsche, which has a 27.5% stake in Volkswagen and was founded by Mr. Piech’s grandfather, Ferdinand Porsche? The bottom line: a plan backed by Mr. Piech and top executives from Porsche that would reorganize Volkswagen’s management board along lines similar to those at Porsche. Of course, Porsche sells less than 100,000 cars a year; VW, along with its Audi and other brands, makes more than five million.

Sneaky SEC on CEO Comp

From The New York Times

If you want to deliver bad news, do it on a day when no one’s paying attention. That advice seemed to suit the Securities and Exchange Commission, which last Friday reversed a decision it had made in July and adopted a rule that would allow many companies to report significantly lower total compensation for top executives. At the center is how stock options are counted for executives’ total pay packages. Institutional investors, such as pension funds, were all for the disclosure. Corporations weren’t. Guess who won? You’d think in a year when the phrase “stock options” made such notorious headlines, that more openness would have been mandated. Guess not.

How They Can Find Out About You

From Law Technology News on Law.com

There are lots of public records online that contain lots of information about you. But you knew that. What researchers who just might be trying to find out about you also know is that there’s lots of other ways to flesh you out. Got a blog? Hang out in social networking sites? Ever had a PowerPoint posted somewhere after that conference? There are clues to who you are almost anywhere an investigator wants to look.

Tech By the End of 2007

From Businessweek.com

Microsoft’s Vista and Apple’s Leopard are only the beginning of the tech predictions for the coming year. Also look for: higher computer prices, as the hardware has to keep up with the stronger software; beefed-up wi-fi capabilities; and broadband with a vengeance.

A Year-end Wrap-up From Wharton

Knowledge @ Wharton takes a backward look to highlight the articles that you should not have missed. Among my pick of the picks:

The Blabbing Customer: In my magazine days, I could quote you more precisely the great big percentage of people who write in to complain versus those very, very who write fan letters. Something just impels people to kvetch. A Wharton marketing professor puts a more refined spin on it: “if 100 people have a bad experience, a retailer stands to lose between 32 and 36 current or potential customers.”

How You Feeling — At Work? These Wharton professors found that pretty much those people who start the day feeling good, tend to stay that way. Got grumpy on the morning commute? Well, the day’s probably ruined.

The Operational vs. The Vigilant Leader: By taking a close look at Ford’s problems at Ford and at Coke and Pepsi’s woes in India, two professors make the case for leaders who can probe more deeply for fallout and who can take in a variety of perspectives.

Metrics in Marketing — You Have an Answer?

From CFO.com

If a video ad for BMW shows up on YouTube and is downloaded a gazillion times, does that positively impact BMW? And if you believe it down, just how would you go about measuring that ROI?

Internet advertising spending may have tripled, but bean-counters are hard-pressed to keep up. Toyota and P&G are some of the companies trying to come up with new ways to determine the ROI for the new media.

Quick Hits from Wall $treet Journal

From Wall Street Journal ($)

>>Search engines focused on local stores

>>Title of next/last JK Rowling book: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

>>The wealthiest 1% of tax filers paid 35% of all individual income-tax payments in 2002.

Playing With the Big Guys: Incentive Cards

From Inc.com

Historically, incentive cards have only been cost effective for big corporations because they can fund the necessary technology and infrastructure. However, The Interra Project is aimed at small businesses: Every time customers use the card, a percentage of their transactions is returned to them as a cash rebate, a percentage is donated to a community-based non-profit of their choice, and a percentage is fed back into the program.