April 27, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Apple, Inc., apologized for allowing the iPhone game “Baby Shaker” – that let a player quiet a virtual crying infant by shaking the device – to be distributed through iPhone App Stores. College of Communication Professor Peter Morrissey, an expert in PR reputation management, says the marketers should be fired.
“This was a bad idea gone bad. The reputation issues are obvious. They can apologize, but this is not enough. People get fired and companies close for lesser things in both the real world and in the fantasy-game world. Those responsible for marketing this game should have gone out of business, aka, fired.”
Contact Peter Morrissey, 617-353-1020, pmorriss@bu.edu
April 25, 2009 at 6:00 am
Boston University’s Military Education department will hold its annual Pass-In-Review ceremony, featuring keynote speaker Brigadier General Fuller, today. This year, the department celebrates the 90th consecutive year of the Reserve Officer Training Corps at BU. The Pass-In-Review, a long-standing military tradition that began as a way for a newly assigned commander to inspect his troops, includes the visiting officers and guest speakers reviewing the troops of the three ROTC service branches. The event will begin at 10:00 AM at BU's Nickerson Field.
EVENT FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
April 24, 2009 at 3:06 pm
School of Management Senior Lecturer Mark T. Williams, a former Federal Reserve bank examiner, says the public should be wary of results from the "stress tests" being performed by the Fed on the nation's 19 largest banks.
"Stress testing is only an estimation tool. Such tools were used by major banks as they overdosed on CDOs in 2006-2007, and these same types of risk models can turn out to be precisely wrong.
"Stress testing results should be used to shore up capital position, not as a means to justify a reduction in capital. Given their previous track record of letting banks overdose on risk, I am concerned about the true usefulness of the stress-test results."
Contact Mark T. Williams, 617-358-2789, williams@bu.edu
April 24, 2009 at 2:15 pm
With Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. ousting the MySpace founders in an effort to transform the TV/movie/newspaper conglomerate into a new-media titan, College of Communication Professor T. Barton Carter says it's about money and popularity.
"This illustrates two major issues facing many Internet ventures. One is finding a way to translate popularity to revenue, and many of the best-known Web services have yet to find a way to make money. The second is maintaining popularity. Far too often services can fall from the hot service to yesterday's news."
Contact T. Barton Carter, 617-353-3482, comlaw@bu.edu
April 23, 2009 at 4:40 pm
College of Communication Professor Peter Morrissey, a veteran reputation-management expert whose clients included Johnson & Johnson during the Tylenol case, says Craigslist managing its reputation in light of the "Craigslist murder" case is tricky.
"As far as Craigslist's reputation goes, they need to be seen as being on the side of the law. They are the media in this case and in some ways the enabler. They need to show that they care and they need to try to take actions to protect the public from themselves if need be. This is the gray area of media freedom -- who will guard the guards?"
Contact Peter Morrissey, 617-353-1020, pmorriss@bu.edu
April 23, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Researchers led by James J. Collins, professor of bioengineering, have found a more systematic way, using computer modeling, to construct biological "circuits" which are easier to predict how they will behave before they are synthesized. Their approach eliminates the current trial and error frustrations that can take months and years of tweaking. The technique used genetic timer circuit in yeast to more accurately engineer a key brewing process for the removal of sedimentation in beer and wine. It is also a useful approach for producing therapeutic drugs and biofuels.
"Our work also provides an accessible method for introducing predictable, controlled variablility to networks, a feature that is increasingly becoming desirable as synthetic biology enters its second decade," Collins concluded in his recent Nature Biotechnology paper .
April 22, 2009 at 3:15 pm
School of Management Professor N. Venkat Venkatraman, chairman of the Information Systems Department, says Oracle acquiring Sun Microsystems after Sun's talks with IBM broke down could be an industry-leading move.
"Oracle has been quietly developing and refining its capabilities for integrating acquisitions - especially PeopleSoft, Siebel, and BEA Systems. These gave Oracle an edge in terms of extracting value while ruthlessly reducing costs. It appears Oracle is relying on that history to make Sun mesh well.
"This will be a big test with about 30,000 additional employees (nearly 40% of Oracle's current employment). If Oracle can pull this off and streamline the combined product portfolio, it will emerge as a serious contender as the industry transitions to cloud computing."
April 22, 2009 at 11:08 am
School of Management Professor Kathy Kram, an authority on human resources, says this year's national Administrative Professionals' Day should make bosses be all the more appreciative of admin in a time of recessionary downsizing.
"After all the necessary downsizing, those who are left in administrative professional roles are essential. For admin, think about how to make sure you remain essential by demonstrating that you can take on the most challenging aspects of the job and therefore make life more manageable for the folks you are supporting."
Contact Kathy Kram, 617-353-4269, kekram@bu.edu
April 21, 2009 at 4:52 pm
With word of federal probes under way into alleged fraud involving banking bailout funds, School of Law Professor Tamar Frankel, an authority on securities law and legal ethics, says those receiving TARP funds should be subject to ongoing examinations.
"‘It’s the culture, stupid.’ Law not only limits innovations, it also controls competition on innovative antisocial behavior. We have created a culture that is hostile to law. Our culture attributes to lawmakers and regulators corrupt practices and intent. This justifies the same behavior by those subject to the laws and regulations.
"The fact that examinations started soon after taxpayers' money was doled out is a good sign. The better would have been examinations before money was given. To be sure, time pressure made installment of such examinations impossible. But now they are possible and should be established -- not once, but as a matter of course, long-term and often.
"At the same time, the examiners should be shielded from temptation as well. A balance must be achieved or our financial system will not revive."
Contact Tamar Frankel, 617-353-3773, tfrankel@bu.edu
April 18, 2009 at 8:00 am
The School of Education Speaker Series presents First Wave Hip Hop Theater Ensemble featuring Sofia Snow, voted Best Spoken Word Artist in Boston in 2007, today at 4:00 PM in the SED auditorium (2 Silber Way, Boston). EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
