The Poet Laureate of Traveling Consultants – Businessweek

Pascal Dennis, president of management consultancy Lean Pathways, started keeping a daily journal when he regularly traveled three weeks a month for work. Dennis, the author of five other business books, combines his experiences from doing business around the world into a new book, Reflections of a Business Nomad: Stories and Poems From the Road, a collection of musings about everything from flight delays and meetings to conversations with cabdrivers, often peppered with historical and philosophical references, such as Virgil and Epictetus.

A sample verse:

Eyes dry, neck stiff, unable to leave—or stay.

If my flight’s cancelled I’ll sleep in a strange hotel

and come back in the morning.

Bloomberg Businessweek spoke to Dennis about Reflections, which he chose to self-publish with a first run of 5,000 copies.

Do you find anything funny about some of these stories, in terms of how mundane they are?

Within the mundane flight delay or cab ride, there are always interesting things there. There are a number of pieces about cabbies, and I really like cabbies. They are almost always interesting characters and sometimes they are wonderful storytellers.

Does business travel inspire you?

Business travel is pretty bad. The airline industry is one of the worst. Traveling itself is not pleasant, but once you get to the place and see people in a business situation, it’s extremely interesting and stimulating. I’ve seen such drama and comedy and tragedy, often all at the same time, at these international companies. I just wanted to write it down. I’d just scribble things down at the end of the day, usually at the hotel bar, to try to make sense of what I’d experienced.

via The Poet Laureate of Traveling Consultants – Businessweek.

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Why the Emancipation Proclamation Is Worth Only 2% of ‘The Scream’ – Businessweek

In 1863, Abraham Lincoln signed an executive order that freed slaves in the non-Union states—and he signed 48 copies. The original version of the Emancipation Proclamation is in the National Archives, but several copies are privately owned. One of those will be put up for sale at the Robert Siegel Auction Galleries on June 26 and is expected to fetch between $1.8 million and $2.5 million. Bloomberg Businessweek spoke with Seth Kaller, the historian who authenticated and appraised the document and has agreed to sell it for the owner. Kaller explained the origins of the document, which U.S. presidents bring in the most money at auction, and why historical papers are so much cheaper than works of art.

Wait, so Lincoln signed 48 copies of the Emancipation Proclamation? Why’d he bother to do that?

One of the ways that the Northern public supported the troops during the Civil War was through an organization called the Sanitary Commission. They helped makes soldiers’ conditions in the camps better by improving administering medicine, providing items for personal comfort, and supplying pens and paper so they could write home. Think of it as something similar to the Red Cross and USO put together.

To raise money for all of this, the Sanitary Commission held what were called Sanitary Fairs. They sold artwork, autographs—anything of value that people donated to them. Lincoln was very popular in the North, at least, so some abolitionists asked him to sign a number of copies of the Emancipation Proclamation, which they sold for $10 a piece. There were 48 originally but only 26 remain now.

Who has them?

Eighteen are in museums or libraries. One of those is on loan right now to the White House. Eight are in private hands. But several of those are slated to go to museums in the coming years. I sold three of them in the $1 million-plus range a few years ago. The most interesting one has been the one that went for $3.77 million at Sotheby’s BID in 2010. It was the same as the others but it had the added bonus that in 1964 or ’65, when Bobby Kennedy was involved in the civil rights movement, he bought the copy.

via Why the Emancipation Proclamation Is Worth Only 2% of ‘The Scream’ – Businessweek.

Strange Random History Quote:

History has to be rewritten because history is the selection of those threads of causes or antecedents that we are interested in. – O. W. Holmes, Jr.

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‘Likejacking’: Spammers Hit Social Media – Businessweek

Michelle Espinoza thought a single photo was going to ruin her business. It was an image of one of the pearl cuff bracelets she designs that showed up on Pinterest, a site where users create virtual bulletin boards, grouping images in categories—whether it be chocolate desserts or bohemian jewelry. For 10 days in April, anybody who clicked on the photo ended up watching pornography or unwittingly downloading a virus. “I can’t gauge how many customers I lost,” says Espinoza, a resident of Santa Rosa Beach, Fla. “But I did have people messaging me asking, ‘Are you linked to spam?’ I was just distraught.”

When Pinterest debuted two years ago, e-mail was the format of choice for spam peddling diets, sexual enhancement, and get-rich scams. Better filters have since banished many of the unwanted missives from in-boxes. Instead, scammers are turning to social media sites that are often poorly equipped to deal with the influx. “Social spam can be a lot more effective than e-mail spam,” says Mark Risher, chief executive officer of Impermium, which sells anti-spam software. “The bad guys are taking to this with great abandon.”

Spammers create as many as 40 percent of the accounts on social-media sites, according to Risher. About 8 percent of messages sent via social pages are spam, approximately twice the volume of six months ago, he says. Spammers use the sharing features on social sites to spread their messages. Click on a spammer’s link on Facebook FB, and it may ask you to “like” or “share” a page, or to allow an app to gain access to your profile.

via ‘Likejacking’: Spammers Hit Social Media – Businessweek.

Strange Random Spam Quote:

No one bill will cure the problem of spam. It will take a combined effort of legislation, litigation, enforcement, customer education, and technology solutions. – David Baker

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