Newsroom

MIT Sloan Prof. Simon Johnson co-authored an essay on Greece's economic crisis, and the European Central Bank's deliberations to continue providing financial support across the European Union. "If these problems are not addressed quickly and effectively, Europe's economy will be derailed -- with serious, if hard to quantify, implications for the rest of the world," he writes.

In this first-person account, MIT Sloan Prof. Renee Richardson Gosline says she became interested in the implications of counterfeit consumption when a friend invited her to a "purse party" at her neighbor's house. The event, she writes, was attended by a loose network of friends, coworkers and other neighbors. The hostess served wine, appetizers and ... fake, illegal designer handbags.

MIT Sloan alumna Camila Merino Catalán and former MIT Sloan lecturer Ricardo Raineri Bernain will take office in the new Chilean president-elect's minister cabinet. Catalán will serve as Labor Minister, and Bernain as Energy Minister starting March 11.

MIT Sloan Prof. Michael Cusumano is quoted on Toyota's recent fumble over global recalls due to defects in gas pedals and floor-mats that resulted in faulty braking. "As far as we know, Toyota is still the best manufacturing company in the world when it comes to production management. Workers have nothing to do with this," Cusumano says.

MIT Sloan analysis spearheaded by Prof. John Sterman shows pledges submitted to the UN falls short of reduction targets by at least 11bn tons of CO2.

MIT Sloan Prof. Robert Akerlof's new research on "how bosses stay in charge" recommends avoiding the hiring of overqualified employees. "An overqualified person may be difficult to maintain authority over. They can have a bad attitude that's infectious," he says.

MIT Sloan Prof. Yasheng Huang is quoted in an analysis of China's economy that predicts an imminent bubble burst within the next five years. For electricity consumption to drop in a supposedly growing economy is "an extraordinary pattern, a pattern, I might add, that is absent in all other countries," Huang says.

Robert Laubacher, director of MIT's Center for Collective Intelligence, co-authored a report showing that the influx of Hollywood filmmakers in Massachusetts provides big benefits for local businesses.

"I don't begrudge success and wealth, but I would like for it to be socially productive and socially constructive, not massively damaging," MIT Sloan Prof. Simon Johnson says in response to Obama's recent, more moderate comments about executives' bonus pay, with the administration's stated intent to curb big banks.

Participants in an MIT panel discussion on the outcome of the December Copenhagen conference, including MIT Sloan Prof. Henry Jacoby, who co-directs MIT's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, are optimistic despite early negative reactions. Any action is worthwhile "because almost anything we do plays a part in reducing the risk" of severe climate change effects, Jacoby says.

In this opinion piece, the author cites MIT Sloan Prof. Simon Johnson as having said, "Unless and until we break the political power of our largest banks, the middle class will be hammered down."

The MIT Sloan Management Review published video interviews with Prof. Erik Brynjolfsson and Research Affiliate Michael Schrage describing their long-term research project. They are exploring the ways that IT components such as measurement, experimentation, sharing, and replication drive innovation in various markets and industries.

"In physics, it takes three laws to explain 99% of the data; in finance, it takes more than 99 laws to explain about 3%," says MIT Sloan Prof. Andrew Lo.

"He walked into a $12 billion loss in 2006," says MIT Sloan Prof. Michael Cusumano of Ford's top executive, Alan Mulally in a story about the company's economic resurgence despite a rough road for the auto industry in recent years. MIT Sloan Prof. Emeritus Arnoldo Hax, who taught Mulally at MIT in the 1980s adds, "Ford is bringing a sense of confidence under his direction that no other major car manufacturer has."

A new study, co-authored by Catherine Tucker of MIT Sloan School of Management, suggests ways companies can better target individuals without crossing a line. This article was adapted from "How Not to Market on the Web," appeared in the Winter 2010 issue of MIT Sloan Management Review.

"They have no easy option," says MIT Sloan Prof. Simon Johnson of Europe's debt dilemma against a backdrop of the changing credit ratings of global superpowers. "They can cut spending or raise taxes."

"It isn't a healthy economy," says MIT Sloan Prof. Paul Osterman on the bleak short- and long-term outlook for wages and incomes. "There is a broad sense that it's a precarious labor market."

MIT Sloan Senior Lecturer Andrew Wolk is cited as the co-founder of Inner City Entrepreneurs, which provided MBA-level training and networking opportunities to City Fresh owners in 2004.

Two Scottish business people won top prizes during MIT Sloan's weeklong Entrepreneurship Development Program. "I was very impressed by the whole Scottish group... Their capability and confidence grew throughout the week as a result of their hard work," says Bill Aulet, managing director of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center.

Christa Bouwman, MIT Sloan visiting assistant professor, was a collaborator in Bangor University's research on the effects of financial regulations on banks.

MIT Sloan Senior Lecturer Bill Aulet is cited as a board member of XL Hybrid, a startup that helps organizations manage fleets of hybrid or electric vehicles. The company has collected $850K of its proposed $1.2 million in capital.

This article features MIT Sloan Prof. Andrew Lo's Adaptive Market Hypothesis, which attempts to update Modern Portfolio Theory. "The MPT model is not wrong, it's just incomplete," says Lo.

A new group, Graduate Women at MIT, will collaborate with events for departmental groups, such as MIT Sloan Women in Management (SWIM). SWIM President Veena Jayadeva says, "GWAMIT is a much more formalized way to go to one place and say 'Ya, this is what's going on.'"

Pixable, a social media photo storing, sharing and printing tool created by three MIT Sloan students, launched the new Photo Mosaics tool today, which allows users to create digital photo mosaics for digital use, with an option to buy poster prints. This article cites MIT Sloan Prof. Edward Roberts as one of the key investors in the year-old company.

The MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference kicks off its fourth year on March 6, 2010 with a new presenting sponsor and a roster of speakers that will include NFL, MLB, NHL, MLS, EPL and NBA owners, coaches, and industry leaders, and the journalists that follow them. ESPN has agreed to become the presenting sponsor of Sloan's most popular conference, says Daryl Morey, an MIT Sloan alumnus and general manager of the Houston Rockets, who co-chairs the conference.

The Asian America MultiTechnology Association, a business network for entrepreneurship and capital investment, has named MIT Sloan alumnus David J. Lam as its president.

Heather Tow-Yick, MIT Sloan alumna, will be the new state executive director for Teach for America, a teacher placement program serving low-income and minority students. "[Business school] gave me insight about how business leaders effect change in their own industry, and how they could be leveraged in the efforts to achieve education reforms," says Tow-Yick.

MIT Sloan alumnus Charles Murphy has joined the board of directors for Conseco, an insurance provider targeting the middle income market and seniors.

MIT Sloan alumnus Matthew Gardiner describes six ways enterprises can improve cloud security. "Enterprises must never forget that they will face the majority of the blame if security breaches occur," he writes.

MIT Sloan Prof. Simon Johnson is quoted in an article about the strength of the U.S. dollar's effect on efforts to double U.S. exports. If the dollar continues to increase in strength, rather than weaken, "it would wipe out all the other bits and pieces [the president] is putting together to encourage exports," Johnson says.

MIT Sloan provided legal and business plan support to Indian farmer Mansukhbhai Jagani to produce his innovative tilling, weeding, and sowing invention called Santi, a tractor built from his old motorcycle.

In a list of ten ways to promote productivity and success among virtual work teams, the authors cite research from MIT Sloan showing that virtual teams using specific processes for goal setting, planning, problem solving, and role assignment outperform other teams.

MIT Sloan alumnus Andrew Phillip Bechtel will marry Casey Jackman Russell in June 2010.

MIT Sloan hosted the "Loaned Executive" training program coordinated by the Charitable Campaign Coalition and Action for Boston Community Development program.

The new certificate program is open to all MIT Sloan graduate students who fulfill five required core courses and two elective class requirements with a focus on strategies for sustainable business, global climate change, and system dynamics.

3Play Media, the Somerville-based company founded by MIT Sloan alumni Josh Miller, Chris Johnson, Chris Antunes, and Jeremy Barron, received $450,000 in angel funding, according to a lead investor.

MIT Sloan ranked eighth among 100 full-time global MBA programs, moving up one spot from last year's Financial Times rankings.

The past year has seen a whole raft of new business school ventures set up across the Middle East and Asia, as the regions' corporations, governments and students develop a taste for formalised management training....MIT Sloan set the trend for these ventures, helping schools in China in the 1990s and, more recently, in Portugal. Dean David Schmittlein and CDO Director Jackie Wilbur are quoted in this piece.

In this opinion piece, MIT Sloan Prof. Simon Johnson writes, "After more than a year of tough argument, Paul Volcker has finally persuaded top aides to President Barack Obama that the unconditional bailouts of 2008-09 planted the seeds for another major economic crisis. Unfortunately, in their scramble to announce this major policy shift ahead of Wall Street's bonus season, the administration didn't line up all relevant details."

In this opinion piece on next steps for the Obama Administration on curbing financial risk, MIT Sloan Prof. Simon Johnson recommends two key elements of successful regulation: tripling capital requirements and shrinking big banks.

MIT Sloan Prof. Simon Johnson co-authored an opinion piece on the latest developments in regulating the American-European financial system. "Rather than recognising the dangerous systemic failures in our financial system, their leaders are proposing bandages that can - at best - only postpone another, possibly much larger, meltdown," he writes.

MBA students from MIT's Sloan School recently took their annual "tech trek," testing out the demand for summer internships for the class of 2011 and full-time jobs for this year's graduates. Students fanned out across Boston, Silicon Valley and Seattle, meeting with energy and high-tech enterprises. In December others visited six Boston-area biotechnology companies. And what they found gave them reason to hope; tech outfits are finally seeing demand pick up, energy companies are pushing hard to develop renewable fuels and together the two sectors could lead the way out of a job market morass..."The general consensus is that things are better, particularly in Silicon Valley." MBAs Jacklyn Loo and Mike Norelli are quoted.

MIT Sloan MBAs Hilda Tang and Ryan Thurston were interviewed about their experiences during the Seattle Tech trek. "It's very competitive right now. So we have to make sure that during the recruiting process we're aware of the skill set they are looking for, and we target towards those," says Tang. Thurston noted the broad range of positions that are available to job seeking MBAs, "They want someone who has done technical development, who has done management, who knows what a balance sheet looks like... someone who is optimistic. They need all these pieces to drive their products forward."

The new certificate program is open to all MIT Sloan graduate students who fulfill five required core courses and two elective class requirements with a focus on strategies for sustainable business, global climate change, and system dynamics.

Simon Johnson, MIT professor and economist, spoke with host Guy Raz about the Move Your Money campaign.

MIT Sloan Prof. Andrew Lo discusses the pros and cons of proprietary trading in light of proposed strict new regulations on banks. "We have to recognize that proprietary trading has a number of positive benefits, which if we end up constraining it, we will have to face those consequences," he says.

The biggest shortcoming of the Obama's business plan overall is that it won't significantly help young entrepreneurial companies, according to Edward Roberts, founder of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center.

MIT Sloan Prof. Drazen Prelec has joined the advisory board at Micronotes, an outbound interactive marketing company.

During his presentation at the Linux.Conf.Au 2010 for open-source software developers, MIT Senior Researcher Benjamin Mako Hill criticized proprietary software's use of "antifeatures," such as spyware and code limitations, to exploit users and prevent the use of third-party accessories. "The world of proprietary software is a world full of software that people hate," Mako Hill says.

In a report on reactions to Obama's strict financial policy announcement from Wall Street, bankers, the United Kingdom, international media, and expert economists, MIT Sloan Prof. Simon Johnson says, "they think the big banks should just carry on as usual."

"It's a fundamental shift," says MIT Sloan Prof. Simon Johnson on Obama's policy move in favor of stronger financial regulations. "This is coming from the political side. There are classic signs of major policy changes under pressure...but in a new and much more sensible direction."

Yasheng Huang, a professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management, estimates that China's absolute levels of poverty and illiteracy have doubled since 2000. In India, he says, they've been halved.

Christa Bouwman, MIT Sloan visiting assistant professor, is noted in this article for her research collaboration on the effects of financial regulation on banks.

Rama Ramakrishnan, MIT Sloan senior lecturer and data-mining expert, will provide one of the keynote presentations at a conference exploring how to capitalize on customer and employee engagement.

"I want to stress one more time that technologies that are not freeform are not bad or shortsighted or somehow deficient," writes MIT Sloan's Andrew McAfee in this opinion piece.

MIT Sloan Prof. Michael Cusumano is quoted in a story about whether Google's threat to close their operations in China due to censorship and account hacking is likely to affect China's policies. "I don't think they have any leverage," he says. "The Chinese government has been pretty clear in the past that it does not cave in to outside pressure of any sort."

MIT Sloan Senior Lecturer Charles Kane spoke to Carnegie Mellon University students about the business world in this lecture series.

"Consumption as a proportion of GDP has declined to levels not seen anywhere else in the world. This is the root of global imbalances," says Yasheng Huang, an economist at MIT. "The stimulus plan is probably only making things worse."

MIT Sloan Prof. Thomas Malone provided the keynote presentation at the 2010 Annual Conference of the Association for Library and Information Science Education. He addressed how new information technologies affect collaboration in business, government, and academia.

MIT Sloan Prof. Thomas Malone is featured in an article about the growing trend of freelance, temporary, and self-employed workers, and other changes in how we define careers. "What I'm just now realizing is that many people today see their career portfolio including a combination of jobs at the same time," he says.

In a climate in which Americans have come to expect perfection in consumer goods, companies are better off overreacting than underreacting when product problems arise, says Michael Braun, an assistant professor of marketing at MIT Sloan School of Management. Such an extreme measure as Johnson and Johnson's nationwide recall of Tylenol in 1982 may not have been warranted for safety reasons, he says, but it reflected well on the company. "These kinds of actions have tremendous public relations value and that can protect a brand because it engenders trust. They probably haven't done that in this case," he says.

MIT Sloan Prof. Michael Cusumano noted that China's strong infrastructure makes starting businesses easier. "There is corruption in China," he says. "But it doesn't compare with the levels of corruption you see in India."

The Accord, a 12-paragraph statement of intention, mentions a global ambition to keep the average global temperature rise to two degrees Celsius. However, Professor John Sterman of MIT notes that the average global temperature may increase by 3.9 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2100.

MIT Sloan MBA Oscar Pedroso interviewed Jerome Mahone, executive director of the Rochester Institute of Technology's high-technology incubator Venture Creations, about entrepreneurship.

MIT Sloan MBA and Boston Tech Trek energy track organizer James Luong blogged about his visits to energy companies during this year's treks on the West Coast and in Greater Boston tech treks. "Each company has found disruptive technology-driven solutions for new or developing market spaces," Luong says.

The MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition and the MIT Clean Energy Prize were featured in a summary of 15 small business competitions open to students and entrepreneurs.

At MIT Sloan School of Management, a popular elective for students returning from their summer internship involves reflection on the practice of management. As part of the course, students are asked to think of their internship as a project, and consider what they would do differently and what they learned. At Sloan, about 35 per cent of students who are offered a full-time position as a result of their internship accept a job.

MIT's Sloan School of Management is one of the few that has consistently given students a chance to visit local companies, but Harvard Business School is joining in this year.

In this blog post, MIT Sloan's Simon Johnson analyzes President Obama's new, tough demeanor in confronting big banks. "If the Obama proposal is the start of a serious debate on these issues, we are at last moving in the right direction," he writes.

This blog entry on Obama's shift to more controlled banking highlights comments made by MIT Sloan Prof. Simon Johnson, which appeared in The Washington Post's 1/22/10 story.

"Bernanke is an airline pilot who pulled off a miraculous landing, but didn't do his preflight checks and doesn't show any sign of being more careful in the future -- thank him if you want, but why would you fly with him again?" asks MIT Sloan Prof. Simon Johnson.

"Now that the administration and the president himself have recognized the danger inherent in big banks and defined a new reality, what is Ben Bernanke's view?" asks MIT Sloan Prof. Simon Johnson.

In this blog posting, MIT Sloan Prof. Simon Johnson authors looks at the political backdrop of the Obama Administration's proposed limits for big banks, exploring the implications for bank regulation after the Republican Senate victory in Massachusetts, application of antitrust theory, and how politicians might play the issue in upcoming elections.

MIT Sloan School of Management was one of four schools to have launched credit union loan programs in 2009, and all were ranked in the top ten global MBA schools.

Federal regulators proposed a limit on energy commodity trading to prevent higher oil costs that can result from excessive speculation. John Parsons, executive director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research at MIT Sloan says, "This is preventing an individual trader from capturing a large enough position to manipulate or impact the price in an outsized way."

Denise Loyd, an African-American professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management, said that while she does not believe her race has hindered her, minorities must constantly process how much their experience has to do with race, versus factors such as personality or expertise. She recalled attending an MIT event where she felt she was mistaken for a member of the wait staff. "There's a reality of being in that kind of environment that can represent a challenge," Loyd says. "Do people really think I belong here? You are navigating the world with that in the back of your mind."

"Since the 1991 recession, you began to see more white-collar workers laid off than you had in previous recessions. That's gotten more widespread with each one," says MIT Sloan Prof. Thomas.

Daniel Ross, who has lectured at MIT Sloan and other business schools, was recently named president and CEO of the developer Illume Software.

MIT Sloan Prof. Michael Cusumano was quoted in this article about the implications for other U.S. businesses following Google's threat to China over censorship and e-mail security. Although he doubts that other companies will follow, "All of the eyes of the world are on Google right now. They have planted the idea that someone can stand up and say we are not going to take this anymore to the Chinese government. And somebody has to be first," he says.

MIT Sloan alumnus Vishal Mehta Pi has unveiled his Infibeam Pi, an e-book reader that looks like the Amazon Kindle, has the same e-Ink screen that the Kindle sports, and has a rights architecture than is more open than the Kindle. The Infibeam Pi, which can now be ordered online, supports, among other things, 13 Indian languages.

MIT Sloan alumnus Craig J. Barberio was appointed as director of investor relations for First American Corporation's Financial Services group.

MIT Sloan alumnus Brian Halligan authored this piece about how marketing teams can keep up with changing consumer viewing and shopping habits. "Is your company ready to cope with the fundamental changes happening in your prospect base? Here are a few actionable suggestions that will help you change the way you market today," he writes.

Yasheng Huang, a professor of international management at MIT Sloan School of Management, heard the news about Google's threat while traveling in China. Reached by e-mail, he said his concern was not for Google, or other US companies with investments in China, but for China itself. "I think that this is a highly significant development," he wrote. "Google is one of the most admired technology companies in the world, and indeed, in China." Huang said Google's statement "signals in very concrete terms the vast gulf between China's current environment and the environment that has created the kind of technological miracles such as Google." Noting that China has its own technology ambitions, Huang said its success so far has been mainly as a manufacturer, and mostly of low-tech products. "For the country to move to the next level and for the country to make true technological breakthroughs as Google has done in this country," he said, "it has to revamp its system in some fundamental ways."

MIT Sloan Prof. Bill Aulet authored this piece about the collaborative approach to innovation that he and this year's Seattle Tech Trekkers espouse. "We can all gain by a mindset of working together," he writes.

The author quotes MIT Sloan Prof. Simon Johnson's latest assessments that have appeared in the media: "The market is very clearly saying that they think there is going to be another bailout... And those expectations of course are self-fulfilling," Johnson says.

MIT Sloan MBA Libby Putman is featured in this article for her G-Lab project in Indonesia with the Mercy Corps. She is working to expand a pilot program designed to improve nutrition by training local food carts to provide healthy food options.

The New York Times opinion page editors asked MIT Sloan Prof. Simon Johnson and other experts what questions they would ask the CEOs of the four big banks under review by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.

MIT Sloan's Simon Johnson argues that the administration's $120 billion tally for TARP losses is 'low ball.' TARP is a direct cost, he says. But the country needed a fiscal stimulus to restart the economy, which "was only needed because of what the banks did. They should pay for that also. There is no logic that says: reimburse us for TARP but the rest is on the house."

Lee Holcomb, an MIT Sloan alumnus, will participate in a radio panel on February 3 about best practices and new developments in cyber security technology.

J.P. Morgan announced the appointment of Frank Troise, MIT Sloan alumnus, as Global Head of Equities Electronic Client Solutions.

Simon Johnson, MIT Sloan professor and economist, blogs about Citi's conspicuous absence from the first day of hearings for the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. "The bank CEOs interviewed Wednesday may reasonably be considered the current kings of Wall Street. But Weill and Rubin are the titans who built the modern Citi," Johnson writes.

MIT Sloan MBAs Rob Lemos and Erdin Beshimov provide five observations on the entrepreneurial and industry trends, local investment perspective, and Silicon Valley culture after their visit.

MIT Sloan alumnus Craig Rottengerg works in finance for his family's business, Long Jewelers, which was recently inducted into National Jeweler's 22nd Annual Retailer Hall of Fame.

In this video broadcast and online news piece, MIT Sloan's Simon Johnson addresses anticipated bonuses for big bank employees. "People working at our largest banks - say over $100 billion in total assets - should get zero bonus for 2009," Johnson says.

Voltaire surveyed more than 120 members of the Global CIO and Executive IT Group who attended the 2009 MIT Sloan CIO Symposium, and reported that IT executives plan to use both InfiniBand and Ethernet technologies to maximize efficiency while building new data centers.

In an opinion piece on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, MIT Sloan's Simon Johnson asks, "Did the extraordinary size and irresponsible structure of bonuses in 2007 help lead the financial system into trouble? Don't today's stunning bonuses point in the same direction?"

MIT Sloan's peer school relationship with the Kellogg School of Management is cited in this story on an upcoming Kellogg Africa Business Conference.

MIT Sloan Prof. Thomas Kochan says, "It is true that diversity can have positive effects, but only if we manage it in a creative way to draw out the different experiences people bring to bear from their backgrounds. It's not an automatic kind of thing."

This article highlights MIT Sloan Professors' Pierre Azoulay and Gustavo Manso's research on how scientific researchers' output and motivation are affected by funding streams.

Grace Ueng, a faculty member of the MIT Sloan MBA joint venture at Fudan in Shanghai, offers the 11th and 12th steps in her 12-step marketing guide for new and existing businesses.

MIT Sloan Prof. Paul Osterman will participate in a panel discussion on Texas' economic competitiveness and education.

Doug Lowry, MIT Sloan alumnus and a retired professor, is featured in a story about his work to create a searchable copy of the Senate and House bills on health care reform. "I'm not plugging either party at all. I'm trying to equip both sides. Let's get everything out in the open. Let's be more transparent," Lowry says.

In a follow-up with MIT Sloan Tech Trekkers about their Silicon Valley experience, students report continued optimism. "My class is very confident that we're actually on the upswing and that the economy is turning around. Given that we'll be interning next summer and graduating in 2011, we're very bullish about our job prospects," says Marc Piette.

MIT Sloan Prof. Tavneet Suri discusses the economic impact of the mobile money transfer system on struggling Kenyans in this podcast. "I think they have completely embraced it, because so many people use it," Suri says.

MIT Sloan Prof. Fiona Murray conducted research with her students to learn how the recession has affected funding for scientific research. "The generation of ideas still seems to be strong, but the mingling of ideas and people and money just isn't happening at the same rate," she says.

Michael Shellman, MIT Sloan alumnus, and Mary Bombardier have announced their engagement to be married in May 2010.

MIT Sloan Tech Trekkers are optimistic about their degree and job prospects, as this blogger reports. "Some of the people at the larger companies we've been meeting with do have MBAs, so it's great to see their progression," says MIT Sloan student Jackie Loo.

In this live television interview, MIT Sloan Prof. Simon Johnson says, "All of the big banks left standing believe that they are immune from any future failure...crazy things happen when you have a financial system like that".

In this radio interview, MIT Sloan's Simon Johnson talks about the risks of re-nominating Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Despite Bernanke's assertion that he plans to avoid future bailout scenarios, "The market is very clearly saying that they think there is going to be another bailout, more bailouts, unlimited bailouts, as necessary. And those expectations of course are self-fulfilling," Johnson says.

In this opinion piece, MIT Sloan MBA Ash Martin writes about the experience of an MBA internship. "The MBA internship is like a test-actually it's not like a test, it is a test. It is an opportunity for a company to evaluate you in a particular role," he writes.

Xconomy Seattle invited readers to join MIT Sloan Tech Trekkers for an evening of networking and a discussion of their activities in Seattle.

Deepali Abhyankar, MIT Sloan alumnus and senior vice president, recently purchased a home in the Burlingame neighborhood of San Francisco.

MIT Sloan Prof. Simon Johnson blogs about the risks of employing finance sector experts, who often also work for major broker-dealers, as government advisors on financial derivatives. "It would be great if people from hedge funds or other financial institutions were willing to step forward and play this role...but while these independent people eloquently criticize the major broker-dealers in private, very few of them are willing to step forward in public," he says.

MIT Sloan research scientist Andrew McAfee authored a blog post explaining the importance of relying more on evidence than intuition when making important decisions. "Intuition is similar to what I think of Tom Cruise's acting ability: real, but vastly overrated and deployed far too often," McAfee says.

MIT Sloan Prof. Renee Richardson Gosline's research on consumer views of authentic and counterfeit luxury goods is still securing press, with coverage in this popular New York fashion publication this month.

"You are Harrison Ford or Matt Damon and you've been dropped into an alien world. Your mission: find the Golden Key which will save the comely damsel and/or unlock the next Billion Dollar Idea from Fortress MIT," blogs MIT Sloan's Howard Anderson. "You know it's hidden behind one of the 1,000 doors, each of which is virtually identical. Your time is limited...and evil competitors are racing against you for that exact Golden Key! What would you do first? Second? That's exactly what Bill Aulet and I are exploring in an upcoming class at MIT's Sloan School of Management, 15.390A: New Enterprizes".

MIT Sloan Prof. John Sterman and the C-ROADS climate simulation model are highlighted in this update on the recent Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. "C-ROADS is both grounded in and consistent with the best available climate science, as well as transparent, fast and easy to use," Sterman notes.

MIT Sloan's John Sterman is quoted in another opinion piece on the results of the climate change conference in Copenhagen. "The longer we delay ... the more costly it will be to cut emissions, the worse warming will be, and the more the people of the world, rich and poor, will suffer," Sterman says.

MIT Sloan's Andrew Lo is cited in this blog post about preventing future oversight of economic warning signs by the Federal Reserve chairman. Lo had proposed an independent body to review and report on crashes or busts.

MIT Sloan is among the top five business schools whose graduates pull in the highest salaries, according to a recent study from Admissions Consultants, a group that provides counseling to prospective students.

Credit is due to the members of MIT Sloan's Media Tech Club for organizing a Massachusetts Tech Trek at all. Most business schools in the area focus exclusively on journeys out west -- and don't offer any opportunities at all to visit companies here.

In this opinion piece, MIT Sloan's Simon Johnson and London School of Economics' Peter Boone warn about the "dangerous financial system in Europe and the U.S." resulting from bank bailouts, excessive risk-taking, and the dynamics of global lending practices.

MIT Sloan Prof. Simon Johnson's recent presentation on economic recovery is featured in this story. His "conclusion is that we may be entering a period of great instability, with more frequent crises and more serious ones," writes the author.

MIT Sloan Prof. Simon Johnson is quoted in this opinion piece weighing economists' varying predictions about the recession. Says Johnson, "The crisis is just beginning. Have bankers won? In the short term, absolutely. The immediate opportunity for change has already been missed".

"If global warming produced the same results as smog, we would be working at a faster rate to find a solution," said MIT Sloan Prof. John Sterman who was among participants on a panel on sustainable business and sports held at Fenway Park.

The relationship between information technology and productivity is a matter of serious debate. In the 1980s and early 1990s, empirical research generally did not significant productivity improvements associated with IT investments, Erik Brynjolfsson, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, says.

This article looks at themes from the MIT Sloan CFO Summit, held in November 2009, with an eye on 2010.

Ajay Kulkarni, MIT Sloan alumnus and CEO of Cambridge-based tech startup Sensobi, discusses a new application designed to organize Blackberry users' contacts. "We realized your phone knows more about you than anything else does," says Kulkarni.

MIT Sloan is one of several schools to recently make deals with credit unions to provide no-co-signer loans for international MBA students, making it easier for them to obtain financial support.

Construction at MIT Sloan is among the major projects set to be completed over the next two years, despite the decline in endowment.

Yasheng Huang, MIT Sloan professor and author of Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics, is cited in an opinion piece about China's global influence in the climate debate, economy, and production and labor. "He is optimistic the present leadership... whose rhetoric has championed equality and opposed corruption, may restore a better balance," the author notes.

MIT Sloan alumnus Timothy Driscoll was inducted into the Boston College High School Athletic Hall of Fame for his talents on the varsity hockey team.

MIT Sloan Assistant Prof. Catherine Tucker co-authored a report on an investigation of online targeted advertising. "Don't try to both complement and compete with a Web site's content," says Tucker.

The MIT Sloan Management Review interviews Professor Andrew McAfee about his latest book, Enterprise 2.0: New Collaborative Tools for Your Organization's Toughest Challenges.

In the United States, workers on the first rungs of the job market run the risk of lower earnings even after the recovery gets going, says Paul Osterman, a professor at the Sloan School of Management at MIT who also teaches at the Institute de Empresa business school in Madrid.

Because the deal envisions emissions cuts no bigger than what countries pledged coming into Copenhagen, U.S. experts say the world's temperature is already on track to increase by 3.9 degrees Celsius (7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels, says John Sterman of MIT.

Peter Weill, director of MIT Sloan's Center for Information Systems Research, is interviewed in this Web cast about the research behind his new book, IT Governance. "We looked at how the key five decisions in IT were made," Weill says.

MIT Sloan professor and transportation expert Arnold Barnett provides insight on developing airport security solutions without sacrificing timeliness and consumer privacy. "If we act, even belatedly, to close loopholes in security, we might force aviation terrorists to adapt new methods that have a lesser chance of success," he says.

MIT Sloan Prof. Simon Johnson reviews three recent books detailing the key events and players of the 2008 bank crisis, and cautions against a repeat fiasco in the future. "Without really serious reform, we have every reason to start counting down to the next financial crisis," he says.

"While explaining the growth differences between China and India by pointing to this difference in infrastructures and FDI, this Indian observer--and many others like him in India--committed a classic analytic error known as reverse causality, i.e., he thinks that it is infrastructures or FDI that caused the Chinese growth when in reality it is the growth that caused China to have infrastructures and FDI," writes MIT Sloan Prof. Yasheng Huang in this opinion piece.

"There is a cohort of people who are condemned to a permanently stagnant career path in Spain. It's very worrisome," says MIT Sloan Prof. Paul Osterman, who also teaches at the Institute de Empresa business school in Madrid.

MIT Sloan's Andrew McAfee's recent McKinsey interview is cited in this opinion piece about the importance of businesses using social media.

Grace W. Ueng, a faculty member of the MIT Sloan MBA joint venture at Fudan in Shanghai, offers the tenth step in her 12-step marketing guide for new and existing businesses.

InnoCentive, Inc., a Waltham-based technology company, appointed Thomas Malone, Patrick McGovern professor of management at the MIT Sloan School of Management and founding director of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence, to its strategic advisory board.

MIT Sloan Prof. Simon Johnson will provide the keynote address at the annual Cayman Business Outlook conference in January 2010. This year's theme, "Prospering in a Grave New World," and attendees can expect a big--picture view of the latest economic and social issues impacting Cayman.

Alessandro Bonatti, assistant professor at MIT Sloan, describes the paradox of online advertising that occurs when technology advances spur more affordable and targeted ads.

Recent layoffs have resulted in an increase in productivity among those still employed, and contributes to the delay in new hiring. MIT Sloan Prof. Thomas Kochan says the jump in productivity is stronger than in many past economic recoveries.

This article quotes a study co-authored by MIT Sloan's Yasheng Huang titled, "Business: Can India Overtake China?"

Systems dynamics expert John Sterman of MIT compares our carbon problem to a bathtub. Each year we pump carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, much of it remains there. It lasts for about a century, although about half of the carbon dioxide produced is removed each year by forests and oceans. Sterman figures the world can afford to churn out another 920 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide between now and 2050. Holding emissions to that level offers a better than even chance at keeping the world under 450 parts per million and avoiding a crucial temperature rise.

MIT Sloan Prof. Michael Cusumano's contributions to an article about the browser wars and the incentives for companies to offer free Internet browsers to their customers is cited.

According to new research by MIT Sloan Assistant Professor Michael Grubb, consumers may overestimate the precision of their demand forecasts. This overconfidence creates an incentive for both monopolists and competitive firms to offer tariffs with included quantities at zero marginal cost, followed by steep marginal charges. This matches observed cellular phone service pricing plans in the United States and elsewhere.

Jessica Mazonson, an MIT Sloan MBA student, was one of five MIT and 80 worldwide students to be named a Siebel Scholar. The Siebel Foundation recognizes students with outstanding academic performance and leadership at top graduate schools of business, computer science, and bioengineering.

MIT Sloan MBA candidate Leland Cheung is the first Asian-American to be elected to the Cambridge City Council. Cheung tapped fellow students and the Asian community using traditional campaigning and social networking to build support.

Timothy Lawton, an MIT Sloan MBA and a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, provides commentary on U.S. troop deployment in Afghanistan.

This story from the Times focuses on Johnson's leadership at MIT during the late sixties, with admiration for his diplomacy through protests of the Vietnam War.

Hungarian businessman and MIT Sloan alumnus Krisztian Orban, with business partner Bert Walker, have created a $20 million private equity fund to buy Eastern European businesses.

Scott V. Seidewitz, MIT Sloan alumnus and principal at the New York-based boutique consulting firm The Seidewitz Group, bought a five-bedroom, five-bath home in Las Vegas in November.

Research by MIT Sloan's John Sterman and Peter Senge are cited an ongoing series on the recent climate talks in Copenhagen. The blog entry also provides a link to Senge's video summary about MIT's work with Climate Interactive on climate simulation tools.

Simon Johnson, MIT Sloan professor, shares his thoughts on potential economic crises for the year 2010.

MIT Sloan's yearlong master's program in finance is featured in this article about specialized alternatives to two-year MBA programs. Shane Torchiana, a student in the new finance program, talks about how the program supports his career goals. Says Debra Luchanin, program manager of the program, "The master's in finance degree isn't designed for broader management positions. We're gearing students up for more specialized quantitative positions, such as asset management."

So would people be prepared to pay to avoid future disasters? And if so, how much? That is the question tackled by Robert Pindyck of MIT's Sloan School in a recent paper he co-authored titled, "The Economic and Policy Consequences of Catastrophes."

This article describes MIT Sloan Assistant Prof. Renee Richardson Gosline's recent study, which showed that shoppers can more accurately distinguish between real or fake designer bags if the product owners "look authentic to the brand."

MIT Sloan's Howard Anderson predicts the coming year to be challenging for start-ups seeking venture capitalist investors. "When the market is rational, and right now it is rational, then you're going to find it very hard to start companies," he says.

MIT Sloan Prof. Eric von Hippel is quoted in an article about new applications of the Open Source Development Model.

Former MIT President Howard Wesley Johnson, who drew upon his management acumen to guide the Institute during the tumultuous late 1960s, has died.

MIT Institute Professor Emeritus and Nobel Prize laureate Paul Samuelson, who had held a joint appointment with MIT Sloan and the Department of Economics, died Sunday at his home in Belmont.

MIT Sloan's Neal Hartman provides insight on why American executives have unique methods of operation. "One trademark of the American style is a focus on achieving results, short-term and long-term," he says.

A new study suggests that funding with a long-term focus and more freedom results in more innovative and influential research. Study co-author MIT Sloan Prof. Peter Azoulay says, "If you want people to branch out in new directions, then it's important to provide for their long-term horizons, to give them time to experiment and potentially fail."

Ernst Berndt, MIT Sloan professor of applied economics, is part of the faculty team for a teleconference and webcast program offered by the American Bar Association Center for Continuing Legal Education.

MIT Sloan's Andrew Lo received the first Market Technicians Association Educational Foundation (MTAEF) Mike Epstein Award in honor of his long-term support of technical analysis in academia and practice.

Glen Urban and John Hauser, professors at MIT Sloan, developed an "ad morphing" system designed to tailor website banner ads to individual users. The program uses cookies to monitor users' click patterns and predict the types of advertising cues to which they are likely to respond.

The president is putting "a little more skin in the game," says MIT Sloan's John Sterman, of Obama's scheduled delay in attending the climate summit in Copenhagen. "The closer to the end of it that he attends, the more he's connected to whatever the outcome is."

MIT Sloan Prof. Antoinette Schoar explains why the best CEOs manage to make struggling businesses more profitable just 60% of the time. She says, "Our results show that managers do matter, but they don't change everything."

MIT Sloan Prof. Thomas Kochan debates the Employee Free Choice Act with former Department of Labor Solicitor Eugene Scalia in a recent panel. He describes the union process as "clearly broken," and says, "we ought to fix the law and fix it systematically."

Dr. S.P. Kothari, MIT Sloan professor and finance expert, gave a lecture on "Economic Recovery: Global Trends and Implications for India" at the Birla Institute of Technology and Science -- BITS Pilani. He highlighted recovery trends and ongoing challenges worldwide

Companies are increasingly affected by their employees' high expectations for sustainability in the workplace. MIT Sloan Prof. John Sterman says, "People are hungry for the opportunity to work professionally in a way that is consistent with building a sustainable world instead of one that undermines it". Adds Deputy Dean Richard Locke, "The risk of asking people to care is that you have to then walk the talk."

MIT Sloan Prof. Michael Cusumano was named one of Silicon.com's most influential people in technology. Cusumano shares this year's honor with distinguished leaders such as the CEOs of Apple, Google and Twitter, the founder of Facebook, and President Barack Obama.

MIT Sloan alumnus Kimberly Picciola authors this piece on the increasing uncertainty of the J.C. Penney department store chain's fair value rating.

Hossein Askari, an MIT Sloan alumnus and former economics instructor, is co-author of a recently released book, Globalization and Islamic Finance: Convergence, Prospects and Challenges.

MIT Sloan alumnus Tim Rowe reflects on the Cambridge Innovation Center's history while celebrating its 10th year as an office rental facility for small and start-up technology companies. "One thing led to another, and we never looked back," says Rowe

Kristyn Desjardins, MIT Sloan alumnus and project director for Applied Marketing Science, was featured in a November 25, 2009 article in the London Times about MBA students studying abroad.

IT Sloan alumnus Pragash Pillai was promoted to senior vice president of engineering and technology at the broadband communications firm, Bresnan Communications.

MIT Sloan's John Sterman will use the newly released Climate Scoreboard, a tool for understanding and tracking climate change negotiations, to analyze proposals during the United Nations talks in Copenhagen on December 7-18.

MIT Sloan Visiting Professor Christa Bouwman analyzed a quarter century of US bank performance data to determine how capital affected banks' profitability, market share, and ability to survive.

MIT Sloan is one of several business schools offering training in improvisation as a way to learn how theater skills can be applied on the corporate stage.

The article notes that the new MIT Sloan building is also on track for LEED-Silver (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification.