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2011 年 Text 1The decision of the New York Philharmonic to hire Alan Gilbert as its next music directorhas been the talk of the classical-music world ever since the sudden announcement of hisappointment in 2009.For the most part,the response has been favorable,to say the least.Hooray!At last!”wrote Anthony Tommasini,a sober-sided classical-music critic.One of the reasons why the appointment came as such a surprise,however,is that Gilbertis comparatively little known.Even Tommasini,who had advocated Gilberts appointmentin the Tim es,calls him an unpretentious musician with no air of the formidable conductorabout him/7 As a description of the next music director of an orchestra that has hithertobeen led by musicians like Gustav Mahler and Pierre Boulez,that seems likely to havestruck at least some Times readers as faint praise.For my part,I have no idea whether Gilbert is a great conductor or even a good one.To besure,he performs an impressive variety of interesting compositions,but it is notnecessary for me to visit Avery Fisher Hall,or anywhere else,to hear interestingorchestral music.All I have to do is to go to my CD shelf,or boot up my computer anddownload still more recorded music from iTunes.Devoted concertgoers who reply that recordings are no substitute for live performanceare missing the point.For the time,attention,and money of the art-loving public,classicalinstrumentalists must compete not only with opera houses,dance troupes,theatercompanies,and museums,but also with the recorded performances of the great classicalmusicians of the 20th century.There recordings are cheap,available everywhere,and veryoften much higher in artistic quality than todays live performances;moreover,they canbe consumed“at a time and place of the listeners choosing.The widespread availabilityof such recordings has thus brought about a crisis in the institution of the traditionalclassical concert.One possible response is for classical performers to program attractive new music that isnot yet available on record.Gilberts own interest in new music has been widely noted:Alex Ross,a classical-music critic,has described him as a man who is capable of turningthe Philharmonic into 3a markedly different,more vibrant organization.,f But what will bethe nature of that difference?Merely expanding the orchestras repertoire will not beenough.If Gilbert and the Philharmonic are to succeed,they must first change therelationship between Americas oldest orchestra and the new audience it hops to attractText 2When Liam McGee departed as president of Bank of America in August,his explanationwas surprisingly straight up.Rather than cloaking his exit in the usual vague excuses,hecame right out and said he was leaving to pursue my goal of running a company/Broadcasting his ambition was very much my decision/McGee says.Within two weeks,he was talking for the first time with the board of Hartford Financial Services Group,which named him CEO and chairman on September 29.McGee says leaving without a position lined up gave him time to reflect on what kind ofcompany he wanted to run.It also sent a clear message to the outside world about hisaspirations.And McGee isnt alone.In recent weeks the No.2 executives at Avon andAmerican Express quit with the explanation that they were looking for a CEO post.Asboards scrutinize succession plans in response to shareholder pressure,executives whodont get the nod also may wish to move on.A turbulent business environment also hassenior managers cautious of letting vague pronouncements cloud their reputations.As the first signs of recovery begin to take hold,deputy chiefs may be more willing tomake the jump without a net.In the third quarter,CEO turnover was down 23%from ayear ago as nervous boards stuck with the leaders they had,according to LiberumResearch.As the economy picks up,opportunities will abound for aspiring leaders.The decision to quit a senior position to look for a better one is unconventional.For yearsexecutives and headhunters have adhered to the rule that the most attractive CEOcandidates are the ones who must be poached.Says Korn/Ferry senior partner DennisCarey:/rI cant think of a single search Ive done where a board has not instructed me tolook at sitting CEOs first.”Those who jumped without a job havenrt always landed in top positions quickly.EllenMarram quit as chief of Tropicana a decade age,saying she wanted to be a CEO.It was ayear before she became head of a tiny Internet-based commodities exchange.RobertWillumstad left Citigroup in 2005 with ambitions to be a CEO.He finally took that post ata major financial institution three years later.Many recruiters say the old disgrace is fading for top performers.The financial crisis hasmade it more acceptable to be between jobs or to leave a bad one.The traditional rulewas its safer to stay where you are,but thats been fundamentally inverted/*says oneheadhunter.The people whove been hurt the worst are those whove stayed too long.”Text 3The rough guide to marketing success used to be that you got what you paid for.Nolonger.While traditional ttpaid,media-such as television commercials and printadvertisements-still play a major role,companies today can exploit many alternativeforms of media.Consumers passionate about a product may create owned“media bysending e-mail alerts about products and sales to customers registered with its Web site.The way consumers now approach the broad range of factors beyond conventional paidmedia.Paid and owned media are controlled by marketers promoting their own products.Forearned media,such marketers act as the initiator for users responses.But in some cases,one marketers owned media become another marketers paid media-for instance,whenan e-commerce retailer sells ad space on its Web site.We define such sold media asowned media whose traffic is so strong that other organizations place their content ore-commerce engines within that environment.This trend,which we believe is still in itsinfancy,effectively began with retailers and travel providers such as airlines and hotelsand will no doubt go further.Johnson&Johnson,for example,has created BabyCenter,astand-alone media property that promotes complementary and even competitiveproducts.Besides generating income,the presence of other marketers makes the siteseem objective,gives companies opportunities to learn valuable information about theappeal of other companies marketing,and may help expand user traffic for all companiesconcerned.The same dramatic technological changes that have provided marketers with more(andmore diverse)communications choices have also increased the risk that passionateconsumers will voice their opinions in quicker,more visible,and much more damagingways.Such hijacked media are the opposite of earned media:an asset or campaignbecomes hostage to consumers,other stakeholders,or activists who make negativeallegations about a brand or product.Members of social networks,for instance,arelearning that they can hijack media to apply pressure on the businesses that originallycreated them.If that happens,passionate consumers would try to persuade others to boycott products,putting the reputation of the target company at risk.In such a case,the companysresponse may not be sufficiently quick or thoughtful,and the learning curve has beensteep.Toyota Motor,for example,alleviated some of the damage from its recall crisisearlier this year with a relatively quick and well-orchestrated social-media responsecampaign,which included efforts to engage with consumers directly on sites such asTwitter and the social-news site Digg.Text 4Its no surprise that Jennifer Seniors insightful,provocative magazine cover story,Ilove My Children,I Hate My Life/*is arousing much chatter-nothing gets people talkinglike the suggestion that child rearing is anything less than a completely fulfilling,life-enriching experience.Rather than concluding that children make parents eitherhappy or miserable,Senior suggests we need to redefine happiness:instead of thinking ofit as something that can be measured by moment-to-moment joy,we should considerbeing happy as a past-tense condition.Even though the day-to-day experience of raisingkids can be soul-crushingly hard,Senior writes that the very things that in the momentdampen our moods can later be sources of intense gratification and delight.”The magazine cover showing an attractive mother holding a cute baby is hardly the onlyMadonna-and-child image on newsstands this week.There are also stories about newlyadoptive-and newly single-mom Sandra Bullock,as well as the usual Jennifer Anistonis pregnant news.Practically every week features at least one celebrity mom,ormom-to-be,smiling on the newsstands.In a society that so persistently celebrates procreation,is it any wonder that admittingyou regret having children is equivalent to admitting you support kitten-killing?Itdoesnt seem quite fair,then,to compare the regrets of parents to the regrets of thechildren.Unhappy parents rarely are provoked to wonder if they shouldnt have had kids,but unhappy childless folks are bothered with the message that children are the singlemost important thing in the world:obviously their misery must be a direct result of thegaping baby-size holes in their lives.Of course,the image of parenthood that celebrity magazines like Us Weekly and Peoplepresent is hugely unrealistic,especially when the parents are single mothers like Bullock.According to several studies concluding that parents are less happy than childless couples,single parents are the least happy of all.No shock there,considering how much work it isto raise a kid without a partner to lean on;yet to hear Sandra and Britney tell it,raising akid on their own(read:with round-the-clock help)is a piece of cake.Its hard to imagine that many people are dumb enough to want children just becauseReese and Angelina make it look so glamorous:most adults understand that a baby is nota haircut.But its interesting to wonder if the images we see every week of stress-free,happiness-enhancing parenthood arent in some small,subconscious way contributing toour own dissatisfactions with the actual experience,in the same way that a small part ofus hoped getting the Rachel“might make us look just a little bit like Jennifer Aniston.2010 年 Text 2Over the past decade,thousands of patents have been granted for what are calledbusiness methods.A received one for its one-clickrr online payment system.Merrill Lynch got legal protection for an asset allocation strategy.One inventor patenteda technique for lifting a box.Now the nations top patent court appears completely ready to scale back onbusiness-method patents,which have been controversial ever since they were firstauthorized 10 years ago.In a move that has intellectual-property lawyers abuzz the U.S.court of Appeals for the federal circuit said it would use a particular case to conduct abroad review of business-method patents.In Bilski,as the case is known,is a very bigdeal”,says DennisD.Crouch of the University of Missouri School of law.It has thepotential to eliminate an entire class of patents.”Curbs on business-method claims would be a dramatic about-face;because it was thefederal circuit itself that introduced such patents with its 1998 decision in the so-calledstate Street Bank case,approving a patent on a way of pooling mutual-fund assets.Thatruling produced an explosion in business-method patent filings,initially by emerginginternet companies trying to stake out exclusive pinhts to specific types of onlinetransactions.Later,move established companies raced to add such patents to their files,if only as a defensive move against rivals that might bent them to the punch.In 2005,IBMnoted in a court filing that it had been issued more than 300 business-method patentsdespite the fact that it questioned the legal basis for granting them.Similarly,some WallStreet investment films armed themselves with patents for financial products,even asthey took positions in court cases opposing the practice.The Bilski case involves a claimed patent on a method for hedging risk in the energymarket.The Federal circuit issued an unusual order stating that the case would be heardby all 12 of the courts judges,rather than a typical panel of three,and that one issue itwants to evaluate is whether it should“reconsider its state street Bank ruling.The Federal Circuits action comes in the wake of a series of recent decisions by theSupreme Court that has narrowed the scope of protections for patent holders.Last April,for example the justices signaled that too many patents were being upheld for“inventions“that are obvious.The judges on the Federal circuit are reacting to theanti-patient trend at the supreme court”,says Harole C.wegner,a patent attorney andprofessor at Jorge Washington University Law School.Text 3In his book The Tipping Point,Malcolm Aladuell argues that social epidemics aredriven in large part by the acting of a tiny minority of special individuals,often calledinfluentials,who are unusually informed,persuasive,or well-connected.The idea isintuitively compelling,but it doesnt explain how ideas actually spread.The supposed importance of influentials derives from a plausible sounding but largelyuntested theory called the two step flow of communication,:Information flows from themedia to the influentials and from them to everyone else.Marketers have embraced thetwo-step flow because it suggests that if they can just find and influence the influentials,those selected people will do most of the work for them.The theory also seems to explainthe sudden and unexpected popularity of people was wearing,promoting or developingwhatever it is before anyone else paid attention.Anecdotal evidence of this kind fitsnicely with the idea that only certain special people can drive trends.In their recent work,however,some researchers have come up with the finding thatinfluentials have far less impact on social epidemics than is generally supposed.In fact,they dont seem to be required of all.The researchers7 argument stems from a simple observation about social influence,with the exception of a few celebrities like Oprah Winfrey-whose outsize presence isprimarily a function of media,not interpersonal,influence-even the most influentialmembers of a population simply dont interact with that many others.Yet it is preciselythese non-celebring influentials who,according to the two-step-flow theory,aresupposed to drive social epidemics by influencing their friends and colleagues directly.For a social epidemic to occur,however,each person so affected,must then influence hisor her own acquaintances,who must in turn influence theirs,and so on;and just howmany others pay attention to each of these people has little to do with the initialinfluential.If people in the network just two degrees removed from the initial influentialprove resistant,for example the cascade of change wont propagate very far or affectmany people.Building on