Noted & Quoted
“Unfortunately, the technology for growing flu viruses to make vaccines is fifty years old — it’s chicken eggs.”
— HBS Professor of Management Practice and former Merck CEO Raymond Gilmartin, at a November HBS panel discussion on drug development and availability in the developing world.
“It’s something that’s still taboo to talk about. People are afraid to talk about it. They don’t want to offend others.”
— HBS professor Robin Ely commenting on the reluctance of firms to accept the real business case for diversity in the workplace. (NPR, January 10, 2010)
“The new paradigm is mobile computing and mobility. That has the potential to change the economics of the Internet business and to redistribute profits yet again.”
— HBS professor David Yoffie talking about the potential economic effects of people increasingly relying on mobile phones instead of PCs to access the Web. (New York Times, January 4, 2010)
“In transforming a home into just another investment, we have created a class of homeowners who treat their commitment to their homes much as they would treat any bad investment.”
— HBS lecturer Nicolas Retsinas writing about the emergence of “strategic defaulters,” people who can afford to pay their mortgages but walk away from the property instead. (Boston Globe, December 22, 2009)
“How predictable was it five years ago that probably well over 90 percent of pictures are taken off smartphones?”
— Jim Balsillie (MBA ’89), co-CEO of BlackBerry maker RIM, on change in the mobile digital world, in a keynote talk at November’s HBS Cyberposium 15.
