| LIKE BOSTON MAGAZINE! |
 |
|
Are Boards of Directors The Weakest Link?How appointed boards often fail to protect the public interest.Posted by Steve Poftak on 1/27/2012 at 8:55AM | 1 Comment
Like most places, Massachusetts uses elections to ensure accountability in government. Don’t like how things are being run? Vote ‘em out. So, it’s interesting that some of the most egregious breakdowns in public accountability over the past few years have occurred in that netherworld between bureaucrats and elected officials — the board of directors. READ MORE |
Second to Google, Boston Consulting Group and More on Fortune’s Best Places to WorkPosted by daily feed on 1/20/2012 at 7:35AM | No Comments
Second to Google, Boston Consulting Group and More on Fortune‘s Best Places to Work. Not to shabby for BCG to be second to freaking Google. Other Massachusetts companies that made the list are No. 30 Bingham McCutchen LLP, No. 35 Millennium: The Takeda Oncology Co., and No. 83 Bright Horizons Family Solutions. [Fortune] |
A Glimmer of Hope on Filene’sCould the resurgence of the Boston office market mean a fix for that hole in Downtown Crossing?Posted by Jason Schwartz on 1/16/2012 at 11:24AM | No Comments
Nah, there’s probably not. Let’s be serious, we are talking about the Filene’s site. BUT, if I were to put on my rose-colored shades and stare at a half-full glass for a while, I might find hope for the much maligned hole in Downtown Crossing in this morning’s Globe story about the resurgence of the Boston office market. According to the broadsheet, 11 office-buildings were sold in the city last year — a four times increase over 2010. That activity is a sign of the business community shaking off its recessionary blues. Demand for office space is up, leading to higher rents, making the office buildings more desirable to buy and sell. Now why does this matter for the Filene’s memorial hole? A quick review: Vornado, a New York real estate trust, bought the Filene’s site for $100 million in 2006, intending to knock down the old buildings and build a sparkling new mixed-use tower, filled with retail, residential, and office space. In April 2008, they went ahead and began demolition, excavating a really nice hole in the ground for us. Then the economy cratered and the building’s financing fell through. Plans for the sparkling mixed-use tower were shelved. Since then, much to Mayor Tom Menino’s ire, Vornado has just let the site sit. READ MORE |
Mitt Romney and the Lost CauseWhy voting for Romney scares the hell out of South Carolina.Posted by Barry Nolan on 1/16/2012 at 10:59AM | 8 Comments
As the good people of South Carolina consider whether or not to essentially coronate Mitt Romney as the GOP candidate for President, one of the biggest things on some minds will be the war. I don’t mean the one that’s ending in Iraq or the one that’s still going on in Afghanistan. I mean the one that started there, at Fort Sumter: The Civil War. They’re still mad about it. Recently, I was down in the lovely city of Charleston, and I took a guided tour. One of the most interesting moments occurred when my guide, a thin and genial man with short, graying hair and a soft drawl, first mentioned “the war.” By way of compromise I suppose, he used the term “the War for Southern Independence” rather than the term many Carolinians prefer, “the War of Northern Aggression,” or the term most of us Yankees were taught in school, “The Civil War.” READ MORE |
Talbots: Searching for a New Identity … AgainRecent brand-saving efforts to go young crashed and burned.Posted by Janelle Nanos on 12/7/2011 at 12:01PM | 1 Comment
So that whole “we’re going to reinvent ourselves” thing that Talbots was doing in an effort to save their brand? It doesn’t seem to be working out so well, as the company recently announced that it’s letting go of its CEO, Trudy Sullivan, after her four years at the helm of the struggling brand. This comes on the tail of their announcement in September that they’d be firing Michael Smaldone, their chief creative officer, who was in charge of the overall vision of the company. In their statement announcing Sullivan’s departure, the Talbots’ reps said that they’d be cutting 100 jobs from their Hingham headquarters and will be putting their advertising on hold as well (that means, sorry, no more Julianne Moore ads). READ MORE |
Create (And Print) Your Own 3D RobotMy Robot Nation: Fulfilling the fantasies of 10-year-old boys, one robot at a time.Posted by Anne Vickman on 12/1/2011 at 8:04AM | No Comments
 My robot creation. Image courtesy of My Robot Nation. Yesterday marked the launch of the San Francisco-based website My Robot Nation. The site — launched by Sarah Stocker and Mark Danks, both vets of the gaming software industry — is the first to offer a consumer-based 3D printing service, where users can create customized robot figurines. And, as it turns out, those 3D printers and software are made by Z Corporation right here in Burlington. So how exactly is a three dimensional robot made? Once a user designs his or her robotronic masterpiece (variables include size, eyes, head, arms, torso, legs, positioning, and add-ons like circuit boards, image stamps, and color), imaging software breaks the virtual robot down into layers, much like an MRI or CT scanner does. These two-dimensional images are then stacked to make a 3D image. Then, the printer puts down a layer of gypsum composite powder followed by a water-based glue, which solidifies into the robot’s form when it comes in contact with the powder, as well as layers of color. This process repeats until the customized robot emerges, ready to |
A Call to New Englanders: Please Defend ThanksgivingT'isn't the season, my friends. Not yet.Posted by Casey Lyons on 11/16/2011 at 9:51AM | 3 Comments
My fellow New Englanders, I write today to decry the creep of a certain holiday on a certain other holiday, one with roots right here in our beloved Bay State. And I’m talking about the Salvation Army bell-ringers already in place along Huntington Avenue, and the 24-7 holiday music station, 103.3 WODS, that began the wall-to-wall holiday broadcast last weekend. READ MORE |
Peabody Essex Museum Swings for the $650 Million FencesThink it sounds far fetched? Well, most of the money is already in the bank.Posted by Matthew Reed Baker on 11/11/2011 at 11:21AM | No Comments
In case you missed it earlier this week, a big bombshell was dropped on the Hub art scene, in a good way. Not only did the Peabody Essex Museum announce that they had a $650 million capital campaign underway, but that (drumroll, please) they’d already secured $550 million of it. Yes, that’s roughly $50 million more than the MFA’s vaunted half-billion campaign completed a couple years ago, and there’s still another $100 million to go before the campaign ends in 2016. Combining such giving to these two behemoths, then adding in the ICA, Mass MoCA and others, it become clear that fine art in the Bay State sparkles with billions. Ah, just felt good to write that. But the amazing thing about the PEM campaign is that it’s getting completed now, in the time of chronic 9 percent unemployment and bipolar fluctuations in the world markets. Much was made about how the MFA was so lucky to complete their campaign in September 2008, just one month before our economy went down Duchamp’s Fountain. In the PEM’s case, they launched the quiet phase of their campaign in 2006, just when the housing bubble was quivering, and they never looked back. Now of course, one could argue that raising money is still possible when you’re going to the people least hurt by the struggling economy, but personally, I’d at least rather see that 1 percent keep the arts thriving here rather than lolling around in their mattresses piled with cash. READ MORE |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Robert E. Lee surrenders to Ulysses S. Grant in 1865, nearly 150 years ago. Image via ThinkStock.
