Tag Archive for 'Ranking'

Interactive World Factbook

The CIA World Factbook is a data nerd’s dream and a crowning achievement in data gathering, highlighting every single country in the world, and presenting myriad facts ranging from GDP to important local industries. It’s also mind-numbingly boring and not terribly useful because there’s simply no way to summarize all that data.

IBM’s data-visualisation researchers leveled their resources at the problem, producing their own World Factbook, a sprawling online tool that lets you create thousands of charts on the fly.

For a similar–and even more ambitious–project, definitely check out the World Development Indicators 2010, which contains details about health, environment, and education of every country in the world.

Most Competitive Economies 2010

The World Competitiveness Yearbook 2010 from Swiss business school IMD finds the U.S. and Europe losing their edge to fast-growing Asian economies.

A lot can change in 12 months. At this time last year, Western nations dominated the annual ranking of the world’s most competitive countries prepared by the IMD business school in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Now, in the most recent ranking released May 19, five of the top 10 are from the Asia-Pacific region. Emerging-power China, ranked No. 18, has gained ground, even as No. 3-ranked U.S. and No. 22-ranked Britain slipped in the global pecking order. Check out the top 10 here.

Megatrends in Global Health Care

Powerful trends are at work — all around the world — forcing changes in how health care will be conceived and delivered in the decades ahead. The editors of Harvard Business Review have compiled a list of 12 megatrends that will dramatically change how we must think about the issue and some of the largely unrecognised consequences.

Megatrend 1: Innovation and demand soar in emerging economies
Megatrend 2: Personalised medicine and technological advances
Megatrend 3: Aging populations overwhelm the system
Megatrend 4: Rising costs
Megatrend 5: Global pandemics
Megatrend 6: Environmental challenges
Megatrend 7: Evidence-based medicine
Megatrend 8: Non-MDs providing care
Megatrend 9: Payers’ influence over treatment decisions
Megatrend 10: The growing role of philanthropy
Megatrend 11: Prevention is the next big business opportunity
Megatrend 12: Medical tourism

The Most Influential Women in Technology

Last year, Fast Company raised plenty of eyebrows by publishing a ranking on “Most Influential Women in Technology”. To compose an updated 2010 ranking it received an overwhelming number of nominees and fresh names proved that. Nonetheless, women in tech remain at a distinct disadvantage by almost any metric (average salary, top-management representation, etc). However, there is also plenty to celebrate and be inspired by. Fast Company categorised those woman into seven categories respectively:

  • The Executives
  • The Activists
  • The Media
  • The Entrepreneurs
  • The Evangelists
  • The Gamers
  • The Brainiacs

Also check out the list of “Most Influential Women in Web 2.0” published in 2008 by Fast Company.

21 Twitter Tips From Socially Savvy Companies

Adapted from his book Engage, Brian Solis presents his list of suggestions to help businesses learn how to engage customers on Twitter through the examples of those companies, from Dell to Zappos, already successfully building online communities. You can find the complete article here. A summary of the top 10 tips are listed below:

1 ) Special Offers
2 ) Ordering
3 ) Word of Mouth Marketing
4 ) Conversation Marketing
5 ) Customer Service
6 ) Focus Groups
7 ) Direct Sales
8 ) Business Development
9 ) Curation
10) Information Networks

China’s Most Innovative Companies

China has achieved a spectacularly high rate of economic growth over a sustained period for more than two decades. Nevertheless, today China faces the challenge of making the transition from sustained to sustainable growth from social, economical, ecological and envionmental points of view. Here’s a list of Chinese companies that are in the forefront of innovation not only in China but also far beyond.

Since 2009, innovation has been identified as a main engine for this new growth model, and the Chinese government has launched a national strategy to build an innovation-driven economy and society by 2020. Will China be able to succeed in making this challenging transition? What will it require in terms of policy and institutional changes? How will China’s emergence as a future innovation economy affect the world economy, as well as the global systems for knowledge production, dissemenation and use? [Source (PDF)]

Top Innovative Companies for 2010

Even in these tough times, surprising and extraordinary efforts are under way in businesses across the globe. From politics to technology, energy, and transportation; from marketing to retail, health care, and design, each company on the Fast Company list illustrates the power and potential of innovative ideas and creative execution.

The top spot is taken by Facebook which has around 200 million active users to date. Most notable in the top five and new on the ranking is Huawei, the Chinese Telecom equipment manufacturer. You can find the complete list here.

Top Business Stories of 2009

From the rise of China to the rise of the U.S. federal debt, 2008 was a year of momentous money stories that will echo well into the future.

It was a year of historic change in business, economics, and finance. General Motors and Chrysler made whirlwind trips through the bankruptcy process, and the U.S. Senate narrowly voted in favor of health care reform in a dramatic vote on Christmas Eve morning, bringing President Obama just this close to achieving a top campaign priority.

In other times, any one of these sagas might have been an obvious and easy selection as the business story of the year. Yet 2009 was so full of drama that health care reform will have to settle for a position on the short list, and Chrysler might not have made the list at all if it hadn’t been paired with GM.

So here’s Portfolio.com’s take of the most important business, economics, and finance stories of the year, selected with an eye toward which ones had the biggest hand in shaping the world for now and for the foreseeable future.

10 Web Trends For 2010

web-trends-2010As the year draws to a close, what does 2010 hold for social media and the web? While web innovation is unpredictable, some clear trends are emerging.

Among the good bets for 2010 online: Real-time, Content Curation, Cloud Computing, Convergence Continues (eBooks are the exception), Social Gaming and more.

This week’s CNN column looks at 10 of the big themes that will shape the next year on the web.

10 Consumer Trends for 2010

ballAccording to trendwatching.com this are the ten key trends to watch in 2010: Business as unusual, Urbany, Real-time reviews, (f)luxury, mass mingling, eco-easy, tracking & alerting, Embedded Generosity, Profile Myning, and Maturalism.