Category Archives: Business

At least I’m right about one thing – PBR

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I like coincidences, so it was great fun to see the recent Fortune magazine article ‘America’s Hottest Investor’ focus on a true contrarian, mutual fund manager Ken Heebner, who also just happens to be at the top of his investment game. And who just happens to confirm my liking for Petrobas (PBR): “Petrobas could become the biggest stock in the world,” he says. Update on his liking of PBR on 25 June.

A few choice excerpts for your consideration:

Just how good has Heebner been? We may well be witnessing the most dazzling run of stock picking in mutual fund history. Since May 1998, Focus has an average annualized return of 24%, the best ten-year record of any U.S. mutual fund, compared with only 4% for Standard & Poor’s 500. Focus, which has $7.4 billion in assets, is already up 15% in 2008 (as of May 19), but it is 2007 that will be remembered as Heebner’s pi

Making Microsoft Cool

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Like a lot of people who’ve had chance to work with Microsoft it comes as no surprise that they’ve realised it’s time to deal with their image problem in the market place. Check out the musings of Red Slice, for example. In ‘Can Hotshot Ad Guy Alex Bogusky Make Microsoft Cool?’ this dilemma has fallen to an ad agency, Crispin Porter + Bogusk, which has been handed a new $300 million consumer-branding campaign.

When I skimmed the article in Fast Company (the link url reads nicely ‘\believe-it-or-not-hes-a-pc.html) last night on the way to the Nlab dinner in Leicester I was intrigued by how great a challenge it is:

“To try to be cool is to not be cool. To chase cool, you’re chasing something that already exists, which means you’re always going to be on the wrong side of it, you’ll always be following.”

“I think we’ve learned that when you take on these kinds of odd relationships with big companies that need a kick start, the motivation to overcome those suspicions is a lot of the fun.”

“I suspect what Microsoft would most like to instill in people’s minds is they are innovators and leaders, and that’s what they think of as being cool.”

So good luck to them. I asked the gut on the train up who had a Mac what he thought was cool about MS and he said XBox. As an older nerd I would say the simplicity of Windows 95. And I suggest playing with the bad haircut theme noted at the launch of Windows 95.   Continuing the bad haircut theme, the original MS team from 1978, and updated, left to right.