A couple selected thoughts for the rest of your weekend perusal.

Resting, Portsmouth, NH

By Umair, about Why It’s Time to Reimagine How We Manage Everything,

Here’s the real problem. America’s economy got suddenly, radically, hyperconnected.

… But the principles of management the economy’s big kahunas had grown up living and breathing? They were built for a slow, monolithic, predictable–a fundamentally disconnected–world.

When the two met, the result was history as we know it today: catastrophe, collapse–and stagnation.

By Julien, A Moment of Clarity,

We will realize that instead of making, we have been optimizing.

Then, we will look up from our screen and think “Hold on– I’m not happy with this at all. I didn’t get into this business to watch what other people do.” We will realize how long it’s really been. We will look at our most visited websites and see that none of them have to do with anything we actually really like. We’ll have changed.

But only some of us will realize this.

The rest of us will go on testing, analyzing, and noting down the changes. We will have become a form of micro-manager, a kind of subtle bureaucrat that gets excited by looking at percentage points. They will not know it, and those around them will not either.

And I have to ask myself if this is what we want.

By Umair, regarding the new GAP logo, Apple, and the value of design,

Most companies don’t take design seriously, but they damn well should.

By Alan, about Malcolm Gladwell’s oft-discussed article about social media activism, clicktivism, and the game theory about strong tells and weak tells in social networks,

If the revolution is tweeted it’ll probably get lost in a sea of tweets about Justin Beiber.

By John, reviewing “The Social Network” (i.e. the Facebook movie),

…the distortions in the movie are not simply there to create a more engaging story; they are there to help construct a narrative of the revolution that helps to reassure the ancien regime that they were on the side of humanity. It is no wonder that the mainstream movie reviewers are jumping out of their seats and offering standing ovations.

By Richard, What Makes Women Rich,

Nations that are more open to women and afford them more opportunity gain economic advantage by harnessing a greater level of human skill and potential. Now, more than ever, the path to economic prosperity requires further human development. Creating economic and social structures which develop women’s full talents and afford them the full range of economic opportunity is a key element in securing lasting economic prosperity.

Read more for stats, graphs, quantitative analysis.