The Best of This Week

The MIT SMR editors

This week’s must-reads for managing in a digital age: The right way to regulate big tech, how 5G will change the nature of work, and a new podcast for busy leaders.

Frontiers

Exploring the Digital Future of Management

Special Report: Collaborating With Impact

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Trends in Digital Marketing

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Creating Digital Offerings Customers Will Buy

Jeanne W. Ross et al.

How can companies decide which new digital offerings to pursue? Successful digital offerings are created at the intersection of what technologies can deliver and what customers want and will pay for. That point of intersection, however, has proved to be elusive. To find it, companies must experiment repeatedly, cocreate with customers, and assemble cross-functional development teams — and the insights gleaned along the way must be shared internally.

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Where Influencer Marketing Goes Wrong (and How to Fix It)

Steve Oriola

Social media has become such an important way of reaching customers and audience, especially among younger consumers, that marketers have faced something of a Wild West scenario when trying to leverage influencer programs. Here’s what they’re doing wrong — and how to ensure a strong, successful campaign using influencers.

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Eliminating Entrepreneurial Roadblocks

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How Algorithms Can Diversify the Startup Pool

Morela Hernandez et al.

Biases related to gender and other demographic factors creep into decisions about which projects to fund with venture capital. Data-driven approaches can help tease out those biases and limit their impact. Algorithmic methods identify potential instances of discrimination and increase transparency, making it easier to find and fix problems. Aversion to algorithms can be tempered by letting decision makers retain some subjective control over the data-driven process.

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Pathways to Progress for Women Entrepreneurs

Whitney Sales

The hidden obstacle to women who want to found B2B startups is often rooted in the way they are mentored and advised in the business world. Where men are more often coached in strategy and business tactics, women are more likely to be taught how to avoid internal politics and “fit in” culturally. This difference in mentoring leaves women at a disadvantage with respect to entrepreneurship.

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Self-Driving Companies Are Coming

Barry Libert et al.

Automation can go far beyond cars. Self-driving company capabilities are closer than many leaders realize. And just as automobile manufacturers are rethinking the meaning of driving within the context of self-driving technology, business leaders are being forced to rethink an equivalent question: What does it mean to manage an enterprise once some of the work can be done autonomously?

Counterpoints: The Sports Analytics Podcast

Information Overload?

Ben Shields and Paul Michelman

As sports become ever more analytical, can there be such a thing as too much data?

Talent Versus Teamwork

Ben Shields and Paul Michelman

Counterpoints looks at whether analytics can quantify team chemistry.

Behold the Big Man

Ben Shields and Paul Michelman

Defensive analytics are shaping how NBA basketball strategy is evolving.

The Right Way to Regulate the Tech Industry

September 19, 2019 | Lisa Quest and Anthony Charrie

Improving the Rhythm of Your Collaboration

September 10, 2019 | Ethan Bernstein, Jesse Shore, and David Lazer

Smart Strategies Require Smarter KPIs

September 16, 2019 | Michael Schrage