Author Archive
Posted June 26th, 2009 by Rose
In this week’s Market Edge podcast, Larry talked with Linda Gridley, President and CEO of boutique investment bank Gridley & Company, about the future of financial services and the impact the recession has had on her business and clients.
Linda has more than twenty years of investment banking experience at several Wall Street firms, including ABN Amro, Furman Selz and Lehman Brothers. As the head of Gridley & Company, Linda has provided financial advisory to companies in the Information Services industry with a specific focus on financial technology, marketing services, data services, outsourcing, and internet services.
Larry and linda discussed the post-recession outlook of several economic sectors and the challenges many of them will face, among other things.
Go here to listen to the full discussion.
Posted June 12th, 2009 by Rose
During this week’s Market Edge podcast, Larry talked with Dr. Nora Barnes, Chancellor Professor of Marketing at UMass Dartmouth, about her research on social media adoption and her thoughts on the future of social media.
As highlighted by the New York Times in 2008, Nora and her colleague Eric Mattson discovered that nearly 40 percent of Inc. 500 companies were blogging while less than 12 percent of Fortune 500 companies had blogs. One of their later studies revealed that colleges and charities are far ahead of the Fortune 500 in blogging as well, with 40 percent of colleges and 57 percent of charities blogging publicly, and only 16 percent of the Fortune 500 doing the same.
Nora’s research has been covered by Business Week, Computer World, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and other business media, as well as the Chronicle of Higher Education, Boston Globe and the Washington Post. She and her students have provided marketing research to more than 200 companies in the northeast U.S. She has published more than 125 articles in academic and professional journals and proceedings.
Listen to Larry’s full conversation with Nora Barnes here.
Posted May 20th, 2009 by Rose
On this week’s Market Edge podcast, Larry Weber discussed the future of health plans with Charlie Baker, President and CEO of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care.
Charlie has taken to engaging the health care audience with his blog, Let’s Talk Health Care. He is one of few health care executives to keep his own blog – writing and responding to all comments. Charlie admitted that at times, blogging is hard work, but he is committed to taking the “namelessness and facelessness” out of the health care industry.
Larry and Charlie zeroed in on transparency, one of the key topics on Charlie’s blog. He explained to Larry that information on the health care industry is limited, and he hopes that in the future, industry leaders will adopt a “more is better” philosophy (despite roadblocks in compliance and industry regulations).
Larry and Charlie both agreed that as this generation of internet savvy individuals grows up, the information they are seeking will need to grow with them. In the future, patients may be able to look for advice from physicians in other parts of the country from home. But, Charlie mentioned, doctors are still wary about dispensing advice to patients without a face to face meeting.
Charlie on social media: “I think it is a very effective and interesting way to learn what other people are thinking about you and your industry…There are huge opportunities for particular parts of your constituents to engage in conversations with you and each other if you bring them into the dialogue, and it costs nothing.”
Listen to the full conversation here.